Mumbai: Ahead of the general elections next year, the government for the first time in the last four years allowed the state-run oil marketing companies to go for a massive expansion of their retail operations by opening close to 56,000 new fuel pumps across the country.
The move will boost employment generation by thousands and an investment of thousands of crores of rupees. For the first time, the OMCs have invited bids from private players online to ensure transparency and the bidding process would be conducted by an independent agency. The expansion of the network is being undertaken by state run OMCs including Indian Oil, BPCL and the Hindustan Petroleum.
“For a fast growing economy like ours, energy needs are growing manifold and state run OMCs are undertaking retail network expansion in tandem with the growth in demand of petrol and diesel,” an IOCL official Parth Vora said. Today, around 55,000 fuel pumps are run by OMCs, of which nearly 50 per cent belongs to IOCL. Among the private players, Nyara Energy runs more than 3,500 fuel pumps and Reliance has around 600 pumps.
