Public sector oil retailer Indian Oil Corporation has lost to Reliance Industries Ltd the contract for supplying diesel to the Indian Railways.

Saurabh Chandra, Secretary, Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas, gave this information on Wednesday, on the sidelines of a conference without giving further details.

The win sees RIL gain a foothold in supplying diesel to the Indian Railways after a gap of almost seven years. Business Line had reported on January 6 that RIL had offered a discount of ₹1.50 a litre to the Railways. Bulk diesel is available at ₹49.12 a litre in Delhi.

Annual business from the Railways is around 2.7 billion litres. The Railways buys diesel through an annual rate contract with oil marketing firms. It invites bids from firms, with the discount level used as a key parameter.

Direct benefit scheme

At the industry event, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, said that 9.34 crore of the country’s 15.24 crore LPG consumers have joined the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG scheme. The figure represents 64 per cent of the total number of LPG customers.

“We have charted out a roadmap to get 80 per cent of the LPG consumers under the DBTL,” said Pradhan. He added despite the large number of customers under the scheme, only 0.1 per cent have had any grievance.

“We plan to strengthen the grievance redress mechanism. Our plan is also to have ATM-like kiosks across the country by the end of the year, where customers can get details of their subsidy received, subsidy remaining as well as the booking status of their cylinders,” said Pradhan.

Ministry sources said that additions to the consumer base may slow down once 80 per cent of the users are covered under DBTL. “Aadhar covers 87 per cent of the population in the first 54 districts where DBTL was launched. In these districts, DBTL adoption has hit a roadblock of 82 per cent,” a senior Ministry official added.

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