Private sector oil firms will start selling transport fuels through about 500 petrol stations in the country by April this year, marking the end of public sector monopoly, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said on Tuesday.

The government has given Reliance Industries Ltd licence to set up 5,849 petrol pumps, Essar Oil 1,700 and world's third largest oil company Royal Dutch/Shell permission to set up 2000 petrol stations.

State exploration firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Numaligarh Refinery have also been permitted to set up 1,100 and 510 petrol stations, respectively.

"A review of the progress made by these companies reveals around 500 outlets would be established by April 2004," Naik said at the inauguration of the 5th oil and gas conference in New Delhi.

Public sector oil retailing firms Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd currently operate close to 20,000 petrol stations in the country.

The licence to private oil firms, he said, was a result of deregulation of oil retailing.

As part of reforms in the post administered pricing mechanism period, the government framed a policy for the development of petroleum product pipelines on common user principle.

"Under the new policy, six product pipelines have been proposed by RIL and one by HPCL," Naik said.

After the success of introducing petrol doped with 5 per cent ethanol, the government has embarked on a pilot project for use of 5 per cent non-edible oil in diesel as a measure to cut India's import dependence, Naik said.

India spent Rs 84,000 crore (Rs 840 billion) last year on import of 74 million tonnes, 70 per cent of total requirement, of crude oil.

"This (doping non-edible oil in diesel) has a tremendous scope for benefitting oil sector as diesel consumption is about six times more than petrol," he said.

The Indian economy, he said, is expected to grow at a rate of over 7 per cent this year. With a population of over 1 billion and rising economic expectations, the oil sector is on a high growth path as the prime mover of the economy.

"There are numerous opportunities available to investors in the entire hydrocarbon chain of exploration, refineries, pipelines, natural gas and marketing sector. The doors are open to international investors as the concern of the government is to take the benefits to the people in the shortest possible time," he added.