From Monday, Puducherry, Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Udaipur (Rajasthan), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) and Chandigarh will see daily revision of auto fuel — petrol and diesel — pricing.
The fuel price will be revised in consonance with the average price of petrol and diesel in the international market. From May 1, as a pilot project, prices in these five cities will be revised everyday.
While the oil marketing companies track the petrol and diesel price everyday, they revise prices usually on the 1st and 15th of each month. The fortnightly calculations are expected to continue as the daily revision will take into account the average price of petrol and diesel over the preceding 15 days with a lag of two days.
In many countries, auto-fuel prices move in sync with the price of crude oil. However, the dealer network will be at the receiving end, as a lot will depend on how prepared they are technically.
“It will not be possible to implement this pricing methodology manually. There are 40,000 automated petrol and diesel retail outlets out of the approximately 56,000 total fuel outlets (in the country),” said Ajay Bansal, President of the All India Petroleum Dealers Association.
Of the 40,000 automated outlets, network connectivity issues will be a hindrance in implementing the revisions, Bansal added. Usually, dealers approach oil marketing companies every other day to meet their requirements. With the daily price revision, the windfall gain or loss to retailers will be wiped out, he said.
Meanwhile, the petrol price was on Sunday hiked by a marginal 1 paise per litre and diesel by 44 paise a litre.