rediff.com: Owners of cancelled petrol pumps may be compensated

State-owned oil companies are likely to compensate owners of over 3,000 petrol pumps and gas agencies whose dealerships were cancelled by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Monday following allegations of favouritism in allotment.

While the 1,134 petrol pumps, 1,788 LPG agencies and 236 kerosene dealerships would be auctioned through open tender, investments made in close to 1,000 operating pumps and agencies would be compensated based on the fair value of assets, highly placed sources told PTI in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Out of the 3,158 dealerships which were cancelled, about 1,500 petrol pumps, gas agencies and kerosene dealership were operational. For the remaining Letters of Intent had been issued and were in various stages of construction.

Sources said half of the allotments were 'A' sites i.e. company owned company operated (COCO) where the oil company does all the work of buying land and putting up infrastructure and operators were appointed by DSBs for their management.

"In COCO, the allottees did not make any investment so they would not be compensated anything," they said adding in rest of the cases, the allottees either invested in land or in the infrastructure or both, and would be compensated on fair value basis.

"The oil companies may also consider compensating notional loss of employment to the cancelled allottees," sources added.

Unperturbed by the Opposition attack on petrol pump allotment issue and disruption of Parliament, the government is unlikely to take any further action in the matter.

Parliamentary sources said that after Monday's damage control through cancellation of the post-1999 allotment, the government was now bracing up for further paralysing of Parliament over Opposition demand for Petroleum Minister Ram Naik's resignation but is unlikely to concede to it.

Opposition has been insisting on the resignation of Naik, a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry in the matter as also a legislation in Parliament on the cancellation issue.

It feels that if a legislation is not brought, then the prime minister's action would be a mere ploy as courts could strike down the government order.

Indicating that no further action was being contemplated, the sources said that it was "wrong to assume that the satisfaction level of the Opposition and the government on some issue could be the same."

They were of the view that the Opposition strategy of paralysing Parliament in the matter "would prove increasingly counter-productive day by day."

The BJP calculates that the Opposition campaign would fail to cut much ice with the people, especially the constituency of the BJP, whose concerns were addressed by the action of the prime minister.

Besides, the party felt that it would not become an issue in the coming assembly elections.

Earlier reports said that Petroleum Minister Ram Naik would look into all the previous allocation of pumps and gas dealerships.

Stung by Opposition's tirade on favouritism shown to ruling BJP in allotment of petrol pumps, he told PTI on Tuesday: "There is a demand to review all previous allotments. It will be looked into."

Naik also launched a counter attack on Congress saying it should explain why the wife of V George, personal secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was given a petrol pump in Delhi on the ground that she did not have any source of livelihood.

"There can't be two standards," Naik warned and advised Opposition parties to end the issue in view of "bold" decision taken by the government.

"We have responded to the general feeling expressed by media and the Opposition. Since controversy had arisen, Prime Minister took a bold decision. For everything there has to be an end," he said when asked about the continuing demand for his resignation, which led to adjournment of both the Houses of




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