There are good chances that the ever-increasing fuel prices would stop at Rs 99.99/litre as the petrol dispensing machines in India can’t display the price figure of 3-digit
Car and bike owners in India have been worried about the ever-escalating prices of petrol and diesel. The situation is so bad that the price of petrol and diesel recently touched Rs 90 a litre in Mumbai, Rs 81.91 a litre in Delhi, Rs 83.76 a litre in Kolkata and ₹ 85.15 a litre in Chennai.
There are several rumours of petrol prices being slated to cross the Rs 100 mark. However, it has now come to light that the fuel dispensers at all petrol pumps are calibrated to display 99.99 only.
Hence, in all probability, the prices of the fuels will stop escalating above Rs 99.99. Re-calibrating the machines will be a tedious process and won’t happen overnight. So, if nothing else, the fuel prices will stop increasing at Rs 99.99 a litre, at least for the time being.
High octane petrol is currently sold at Rs 100.33 a litre but the display machines show only Rs 0.33 a litre. Petrol operators have to manually make calculations and charge the custom accordingly. That said, the purchasers of high octane fuel are few and far in between. Manually calculating prices for normal petrol, which is sold in a much higher quantity, isn’t feasible.
99 Octane petrol is sold by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) under the name of Power 99. Currently, it’s priced at approximately Rs 20 a litre higher than the normal petrol but various pumps stopped selling the high octane fuel temporarily as the machines were unable to display and calculate prices above Rs 99.99 a litre.
With this, it is quite clear that the petrol pumps are simply unequipped to run in parallel with the ever-increasing fuel prices. In case the price of petrol does increase above Rs 99.99 a litre, the fuel vendors will face a difficulty of the highest order. To avoid this, the authorities could decide to stop the regular increment in prices at Rs 99.99 per litre or show the price of half a litre.