Fuel dealers in Punjab says facing ‘difficult situation’ similar to 2016 due to withdrawal of ₹2000

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the withdrawal of ₹2,000 banknotes from circulation in pursuance of its ‘Clean Note Policy’, the fuel dealers in Punjab on Thursday said they were facing a “difficult situation” similar to the year 2016, when demonetisation was implemented.

After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the withdrawal of ₹2,000 banknotes from circulation in pursuance of its ‘Clean Note Policy’, the fuel dealers in Punjab on Thursday said they were facing a “difficult situation” similar to the year 2016, when demonetisation was implemented.

The Punjab Petroleum Dealers Association, a representative body of petroleum dealers in the State, in a statement said that the RBI decision to withdraw ₹2,000 note ‘has again created the same difficult situation at petrol pumps that were faced during the 2016 demonetisation drive.’

Rajesh Kumar, secretary general of the Association, said “Majority of the customers are trying to use ₹2,000 notes even for small purchases such as ₹100-200 for buying fuel, which is resulting in the petrol pumps being short of change.

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“Before the ₹2,000 withdrawal, we used to receive only 10% of our cash sales through ₹2,000 notes, but now almost 90% of our cash received at our outlets (petrol stations) is in the form of ₹2,000 notes. We have to deposit the same in the banks on a daily basis. We are afraid that we would again face problems due to the current scenario we faced after demonetisation (2016) as most dealers received Income Tax notices and raids without any fault of them as they received more payments during that period due to increased sales and outstanding payments from credit customers,” he said.

Mr. Kumar added that the digital payments that used to be around 40% of their daily sales have dropped to 10% of daily sales since the RBI decision on ₹2,000 note. “Our cash sales have increased dramatically as customers are desperately trying to use ₹2,000 notes which will again create trouble for us with Income Tax authorities. We request the RBI to give guidelines to banks for providing enough small denomination notes, especially to Petrol pumps in lieu of ₹2,000 notes so that we can smoothly serve our customers,” said Mr. Sharma.