Noida: Hoarding leads to dip in fuel sales

DEMONETISATION EFFECT: Sales drop to ‘almost half’ after petrol pumps stopped accepting scrapped ₹500 notes from December 4.

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) finally put an end to the use of old ₹500 notes to buy fuel from December 3, the number of visitors to city’s petrol pumps have declined. Although two-wheeler owners continue to go petrol pumps for refilling the fuel, owners of four-wheelers have mostly stayed away. The situation is same for all five CNG stations in the city. The fuel stations witnessed saw huge crowds while the scrapped ₹500 notes were still being accepted

Sales drop to ‘almost half’ after petrol pumps in Noida stopped accepting scrapped ₹500 notes from December 4. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

The petrol pump association of Gautam Budh Nagar (GBN) said that they have observed that the sale has drastically gone down since December 4. And the fuel stations that used to have long queues, now get very few customers The association said that people refilled the tanks before December 4 and use the vehicles cautiously as a cost-controlling measur.

“In the last three days, we have observed that only 50-60 vehicles visit the pump on a day, unlike the 300 or more people prior to December 4. People stocked fuel between December 1 and 3, mainly after government notification was announced,” said an attendant of a petrol pump in Sector 15.

According to the association, there were massive crowds on the few days before December 3 at all the 32 petrol pumps in the district when people had a last chance to use their ₹500 notes to refill the cars’ tanks.

However, the owners of the petrol pumps said situation will not stay so for long.

“Cost-cutting and stocking are the main reasons why the fuel sale has gone down to almost half or more in the past three to four days but we expect the situation to not last longer that a week,” said Kamal Kalsi, a member of the association.

However, a spokesperson for IGL, which owns the CNG stations, said, “CNG stations are doing average business or as usual. They are not affected.”