At least 54,000 petrol pumps across India will remain closed for 24 hours. The strike will take place on 13th October. The strike by petrol pump dealers has been called over various demands, news agency ANI confirmed.
Earlier, in the month of June, petrol pump owners had called off their proposed strike over daily revision of petrol and diesel prices after the government agreed to change the timing to 6 am everyday instead of midnight. Private pump owners, who make up for three-fourth of the nation’s 54,000 retail outlets of the public sector firms, had threatened to go on a strike over concerns of inadequate infrastructure to revise prices every midnight.
Until now price revisions used to come into effect from midnight but considering the fact that dealers would have to deploy manpower everyday to change rates in the middle of the night, the timing has now been changed. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said the new timing of the price change was agreeable to the dealers and so daily price revision will be implemented from June 16 as previously decided.
Federation of All India Petroleum Traders president Ashok Badhwar said the government has taken the decision of daily price revision in public interest.
IOC, the nation’s largest fuel retailer, had said that it will provide information on daily price revisions through various means, including LED screens at petrol pumps, toll-free number, social media posts, mobile apps as well as through SMS.
