Inspection of ROs by OMCs. Minutes of the Industry meeting held on 9 January 2013 prescribed minimum frequency of inspection of ROs by field officers of OMCs, which ranged from twice a year to four times a year depending on extent of automation. In the case of BPCL, 176 out of 14,762 ROs had shortfall in such inspections, while 2,454 out of 15,604 ROs in HPCL had shortfall in inspections. In the case of HPCL, 7 per cent of ROs had never been inspected and 9 per cent of ROs, had been inspected only once. IOCL did not provide the necessary data. Further, field officers were required to report in the prescribed format about the charging of correct prices by the dealers during the mandatory inspections, but the formats did not require reporting of delays in change of prices. This has resulted in continued over/ under charging from costumers. Scrutiny of Inspection Reports revealed that field officers of 25 ROs of IOCL and 10 ROs of BPCL did not verify and report on the promptness in changing of RSPs and correctness of the price charged by dealers. OMCs accepted the observation. BPCL stated (April 2019) that corrective action such as issuing of detailed SOPs, guidelines regarding updation of daily pricing, modifying the Retail Outlet Inspection Report etc. have been initiated. MoPNG stated (February 2020) that suitable advices have been issued to step up the RO inspections.
