Fuel sale drops sharply in last 3 months
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, June 14 2020:
Fuel sale in the State dropped sharply during the last three months on account of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Although fuel sale declined across the country during the lockdown, the decline was sharper in Manipur as compared to other States because retail outlets in the State were not allowed to open for many days when retail outlets in other States had already resumed normal business.
Now, ROs are allowed to do their normal business every day till 2 pm.
There are around 81 ROs in Manipur under IOCL.
Talking to The Sangai Express, some ROs said that most of the ROs employ 10 to 12 staff including pumpmen.
The number of staff is lesser in Kisan Seva Kendra (KSK) ROs.
Bigger ROs like PCTC employ around 20 staff.
When the lockdown was enforced in the third week of March, most ROs had fuel in their storage tanks and all the staff were stationed at their work place.
For ROs which have their own oil tankers, drivers and handymen were also stationed at the oil pumps.
Even though there was no sale of fuel during the lockdown, ROs had to pay for daily expenditures and monthly salary of their staff.
During normal period, an RO having 10 to 12 staff spends around Rs two lakh in a month.
ROs which have more than 20 staff spend around Rs 4 lakh each in a month.
Assuming that each of the 81 ROs operating in the State spend Rs 1.5 lakh in a month, these ROs spent a total of Rs 12.15 crore during the lockdown period.
Even though the ROs are now allowed to do their normal business every day till 2 pm, they are yet to recuperate the loss of Rs 12.15 crore.
On the other hand, according to information received from the IOCL, 15,793 Kls of petrol and diesel were sold in Manipur in April last year as compared to 9868 Kls sold in April this year.
In May last year, 17,109 Kls of petrol and diesel were sold in the State but the corresponding figure for this year is just 11,727 Kls.