Dealer-operated petrol pumps across the country would be open for business as usual on Wednesday, even as officers of state-owned oil companies plan to strike work.

"We support all genuine demands of Oil Sector Officers' Association who are going on strike from Wednesday morning. But we are not joining them. Our petrol pumps would remain open," Federation of All India Petroleum Traders General Secretary Ajay Bansal told PTI.

"Apart from oil sector officers' demand, we also have one which should be considered. We want that dealers' margins should be fixed at five per cent of invoice price of petrol as well as diesel," Bansal said.

Instead of the present fixed margins, petrol pump dealers are asking for five per cent of invoice price, excluding state sales tax, which comes to a little over Rs 2 per litre of petrol and Rs 1.02 per litre on diesel at prevailing rates.

Currently, they are getting fixed dealers' margin of Rs one per litre of petrol and around Rs 0.60 a litre on diesel.

"We don't get benefited by any price fluctuation. Whether oil marketing companies go in loss or make profit, we get the same fixed margins. Even at price of Rs 40 per litre, our margins would be higher if paid as per our demand," Bansal added.

"The oil sector officers could not decide on the matter whether they should support the dealers demand or not as supporting this would mean that they want extra burden of dealers margins on consumers," an official of the oil sector officers' association said.