Reliance Industries has shut all of its 1,432 petrol pumps in the country after sales dropped to almost nil as it could not match the subsidised price offered by public sector competition.

The company owned less than 3 per cent of the 36,936 petrol pumps in the country. Of the total retail outlets, state run Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum own 34,304 pumps, while the remaining belong to private sector Essar Oil and Shell India.

“Reliance has informed that sales at their retail outlets was negligible due to selling price differential between private and public sector retail outlets, leading to closure of all their 1,432 pumps with effect from March 15,” Petroleum Minister Murli Deora informed the Rajya Sabha. Public sector currently sell petrol at a loss of Rs 13.97 a litre and diesel at a discount of Rs 20.97 per litre. This revenue loss is made up by the government through issue of oil bonds and subsidy share from upstream firms like ONGC and GAIL.

Private firms such as Reliance were not entitled for the subsidy and priced fuel from their pumps at Rs 8-10 a litre higher than public sector competition, leading to fall in market share. However, Essar Oil and Shell India have not closed their petrol pumps, he said.

Reliance has 246 outlets in Gujarat, followed by Maharashtra (160), Uttar Pradesh (132), Andhra Pradesh (129) and Rajasthan (107).