Fuel dealers in Telangana feel heat over cash seizures, seek CEO help

HYDERABAD: After bullion traders and jewellers raised concerns over police checks and harassment of their staff, now fuel outlets have voiced similar concerns and requested election officials to provide them a solution. Seizure of cash by police, as part of enforcing the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in the run up to the assembly polls, has rattled petrol dealers, forcing them to peition the chief electoral officer (CEO), Telangana.. Over 3,500 fuel outlets across Telangana are registered with the Telangana Petroleum Dealers Association and supplying fuels of the three PSUs — HPC, IOC and BPC — to consumers.

In GHMC limits, there are over 800 petrol outlets serving lakhs of consumers. “Fuel outlets across Telangana, on an average, do `300 crore worth business every day. Staff either deposit cash in banks or carry them when it is a bank holiday,” Telangana Petroleum Dealers Association president M Amarender Reddy told TOI.

The association sent a representation to the CEO. “We have requested the CEO to instruct police not to seize cash from staff of dealers as it will hamper our business and impact consumers too. From our side, the letterhead of the petrol outlet concerned will be carried by the staff depositing cash in the bank along with denomination and signature of the dealer.

So, the cops can check the credentials and allow them to deposit cash,” Amarender Reddy said in the letter. In fact, if petrol dealers do not deposit cash, PSUs would not supply fuel to the outlets. Also, the dealers have made arrangements with respective banks where they have accounts.

The banks have agreed to issue an authorization letter carrying details of the customer’s name, account number, name of the petrol outlet, etc.,. So that, police checking vehicles could allow staff to deposit cash in banks, according to the association’s president.