Team Herald
PANJIM: The big cut in fuel prices may have brought in relief for customers but it has been a cause of huge losses for petrol dealers across Goa.
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This was revealed by Paresh Joshi, President of the All Goa Petrol Pump Dealers’ Association, while addressing media persons on Friday.
The biggest issue is, according to them, is that the oil terminals got them to load full stock just ahead of the drop in fuel prices.
This meant that the petrol dealers had a lot of unsold stock at the old price. The losses suffered to petrol dealers is not a meagre amount but in few lakhs. According to Joshi, if one adds the losses faced by individual petrol dealers, the sum amount is at an extremely high amount.
Joshi has demanded that the government provide them a VAT compensation benefit corresponding to the cut in fuel prices to help save them from the losses. Lamenting that this had hit them during the festival period, he said a lot of tankers would be required just to deal with this issue.
Further, pointing to how numerous States reduced the fuel prices at one go, Johsi said this proves that the government has the mechanism to reduce fuel prices.
“If they can get down such a huge price fall in one shot, it is better to stop daily price fluctuations and change prices once a fortnight or once a month,” Joshi added.
“Chief Minister Pramod Sawant announced Rs 12 (petrol) and Rs 17 (diesel) cut but the actual price fall is Rs 11.38 and Rs 16.88 respectively. We want to ask where the differential amount of 62 paise per litre on petrol is 32 paise per litre on diesel going. Is this going to some adjustment or central government or state government or oil companies?” questioned Joshi.
