The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas criticised the decision of a section of petrol pump operators to close their outlets, mostly in south India, on Sunday. In a series of tweets, the ministry said, they neither endorses nor approves of move by a small section of dealers to keep their petrol pumps closed on Sundays.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, major dealer’s federations have clarified that they don’t endorse any closure of petrol pumps on any day. He added, such closure of petro pumps by a small section of dealers will lead to inconvenience to general public.
Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the nation not to use fuel at least for a day as it would help cut India’s import dependency. The ministry, however, took offence at the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers who used this to close pumps.
Meanwhile, the All India Petroleum Dealers Association has said it is not participating in the closure exercise. It represents 80 per cent of the 53,224 petrol pumps of public sector oil firms.
