ONGC GRANTED PERMISSION TO SET UP 500 ADDITIONAL ROs
Shri Ram Naik Minister
of Petroleum & Natural Gas has approved a proposal to grant
authorisation to Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC)
to set up additional 500 retail outlets (RO) in the country. This
decision comes following the grant of marketing rights by the
Government to ONGC in May 2002 for setting up 600 ROs. The present
proposal was mooted by ONGC to develop additional ROs in the states
of Karnataka, Kerala, Goa and Pondicherry, consequent to ONGC
acquiring majority stake in Mangalore Refinery & Petro-chemicals
Ltd. (MRPL). With the rejuvenation of MRPL by ONGC acquiring majority
stake in the refinery, ONGC will become a fully integrated company
by opening retail outlets which can be easily fed from MRPL.
The Company is required
to abide by the stipulation as in other cases that a minimum of
11 per cent ROs would be developed in remote and low service areas.
With this total number of ROs to be set up by ONGC increases to
1,100. According to the earlier proposal of ONGC 100 ROs are slated
to come up in Andhra Pradesh and 500 in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
In addition to the
current strength of about 20,000 retail outlets in the country,
the Government has now in all granted authorisation to new players
for setting up 11,159 ROs. The number of ROs sanctioned to the
new entrants forms about 56% of the existing ones. This comprises
5,849 ROs to be set up by Reliance, 2,000 by Shell, 1,700 by Essar,
1,100 by ONGC and 510 by Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. The initiative
to rope in more companies from private and public sector to enter
marketing of transportation fuels would go a long way in improving
the quality of products and services to the consumers.
