NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 11, 2025: The Government has allowed Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) to operate Retail Petrol/ Diesel outlets and LPG Distributorships. In this regard, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has issued revised guidelines for the selection of dealers for regular & rural retail outlets, as well as unified guidelines for the selection of LPG distributorships.
As per the revised guidelines, PACS have been included under Combined Category 2 (CC-2) for retail Petrol/ Diesel dealerships and Combined Category (CC) for LPG Distributorship for which they can apply online as per the advertisements issued by Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs). Further, PACS have also been given a one-time option to convert their wholesale consumer pumps into Retail Outlets for which the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has released detailed guidelines.
The eligibility criteria have also been defined in the guidelines which inter alia, include submission of documents related to registration, land availability, finance, etc. by the applicant PACS for Retail Petrol/ Diesel Outlets and LPG Distributorship.
As informed by OMCs, 286 PACS from 25 States/UTs have submitted online applications to establish retail petrol/diesel outlets, out of which 26 PACS have been selected by OMCs. Under conversion of PACS Wholesale Consumer Pumps into Retail Outlets, OMC reports indicate that 116 PACS from 5 States have agreed to this conversion, and 56 PACS have been commissioned. For LPG distributorship, 2 PACS have applied for the 2 advertised locations in the State of Jharkhand.
This was stated by the Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.
