No level playing in petroleum marketing, says Reliance

New Delhi, Aug 2 (UNI) Reliance Industries Ltd today said that there exists a non-level playing field amongst public sector and private sector Oil companies in the Indian petroleum retail marketing sector, causing hardships to dealers and consumers.

The Government has decided to provide subsidies to public sector petroleum retail companies. As per estimates, it provides Rs 5.77 per litre of subsidy for diesel sold through outlets of PSU oil companies.

''But, the private sector oil companies have been kept out of the ambit of the Government sponsored survival package'' a RIL statement said.

In order to compensate the losses thus incurred due to absence of a level playing field partially, Reliance Industries Limited has increased the price of diesel by Rs 2.5 per litre over the rates offered by PSU, who enjoy subsidy benefits. This increase, after accounting for a higher dealer commission and State and Central levies is equivalent to less than a quarter of the subsidy provided to PSUs by the government.

Even with this differential in price, RIL is incurring substantial losses in retail marketing. Further, this in turn has affected the operations and consequent revenues of RIL dealers.

Over 700 dealers have welcomed and appreciated the short-term relief measures taken by RIL and are looking forward to a permanent solution from the Government.

RIL is having an extensive network of over 1250 petroleum retail outlets spread across the country, with more than 400 outlets owned and operated by RIL, the statement said.

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