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Petrol bunks not to accept cards from January 9
From January 9, credit and debit cards will not be accepted at petrol bunks across Tamil Nadu and consumers will have to pay only through cash.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
The announcement was made by the Tamil Nadu Petroleum Dealers Association (TNPDA) on Sunday afternoon following a decision by the All India Petroleum Dealers Association. The decision to stop accepting cards, according to TNPDA office-bearers, was taken following a move by banks to levy a 1 per cent transaction fee on all card payments.
However, when reports last came in, the government was in talks with banks and oil companies to sort out the issue. Speaking to DTNext, TNPDA General Secretary Hyder Ali said that while they were aware that the decision to accept only cash would put a lot of consumers to great difficulty, they had to do so to highlight their plight.
“Our profit margins are very less as prices are decided by the oil companies. In this backdrop, if the banks charge one per cent as fee, a third of our profit would be gone,” he said. According to him, on an average, petrol bunk owners get a profit of Rs 3 for every Rs 100 sale of petrol or diesel.
“And this is just our gross profit without deducting operating expenses. From this amount, if an additional Re 1 is deducted for every sale of Rs 100, we will be unable to operate our fuel stations,” Hyder Ali said. Until demonetisation, a vast majority of the petrol stations in the state recorded just about 5 to 10 per cent as card transactions while the remaining were made in cash. Following the Centre’s move to go cashless, the cash transactions have dipped drastically and now account only for 30 to 50 per cent in rural areas and almost nil in cities.
“With a majority of our business done using plastic money, this transaction fee would be a death blow,” Ali said. Members of TNPDA also pointed out that they were already put to great distress due to the banks’ delay in payback of the 0.75 per cent incentive for consumers by several days. They said that the banks also did not cooperate well with them in exchanging expired Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes even after the Centre authorised petrol bunks to exchange them for new currency.
Meanwhile, oil ministry officials in New Delhi have claimed that they were not aware of such a decision by the banks. They have also reportedly asked the banks to put off the levy until a system of compensating the petrol dealers is discussed by all state holders including the staterun oil firms.
In Mangaluru, President of All India Petroleum Dealers Association Ajay Bansal claimed the decision to stop accepting debit and credit cards had been conveyed to Petroleum Ministry and Finance Ministry officials. Bansal said petroleum dealers will, however, accept payments through Paytm and Bhim apps. “But we have to stop accepting Paytm if they impose charge for each transaction,” he said. There are as many as 28,000 petrol bunks where Paytm was being accepted.
Truckers threaten to strike
South India Motor Transport Association (SIMTA) president GR Shanmugappa said that the decision of petroleum dealers would directly affect them. “Close to 11 lakh trucks in South India will be forced to go off road if fuel stations do not accept credit or debit cards. This is because we have embraced cashless transactions without an option post demonetisation, as there was a cap on withdrawing money from ATMs,” he said. Shanmugappa said that trucks will be forced to stop where they are as they do not have cash in hand. Extending support to petroleum dealers, he said that it was unjust on the part of the banks to demand commission from the meagre margin offered to fuel stations.
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