The power, energy and mineral resources ministry has issued a guideline for setting up fuel oil refuelling stations relaxing restriction on maintaining minimum distance for new filling stations to be established outside city corporations and district towns. Officials of the ministry said that now entrepreneurs would be able to set up new filling stations at closure distance on national highways and district roads.
Drivers and owners of vehicles will be able to refuel their vehicles smoothly as it will reduce waiting time for refuelling, they said.
According to the guideline, entrepreneurs will be able to install a new filling station and service station within four kilometres of an existing filling station on the same side of a road outside city corporations and district towns.
In the existing guideline, minimum distance for two filling stations outside the capital is 6 kms.
According to the new guideline, there must be a distance of at least 2 kms between two filling stations on the same side of a road in city corporations and district towns.
The distance, however, for two filling stations at opposite side of a road in and outside of city corporations and district towns must be 1 km and 2 kms respectively.
Energy and Mineral Resources Division of the ministry on January 26 issued a gazette notification in this connection.
EMRD officials said the government had made the existing guideline up-to-date in a bid to develop a well-organised marketing system of petroleum products in the country.
Setting up of filling stations and service stations under the guideline will remain open but approvals from fuel oil marketing companies and the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation are mandatory for installation of such stations.
Without prior permission of the BPC, construction works of a filling station cannot be started.
According to the guideline, the filling stations must be ready for selling fuels within 18 months of approval of the BPC. If any dealer fails to obey the rule, the approval will be cancelled.
Any filling station cannot be installed within 8 kms inside the border from no man’s land. The BPC will be able to relax the condition of minimum distance if there are any possibilities of increasing traffic at any place due to construction of bus and truck terminals at city corporations or district towns and ferry terminals on national highways.
Along with applications for filling station, the applicants will have to provide average sales of fuel oils of the existing stations situated on both sides of the road.
The proposed filling stations will have to be set up maintaining safe distance from bridge, turns and intersections so that they do not hamper the movement of vehicles.
Filling stations must be minimum 100-metre away from a bus terminal and will have to maintain fire safety equipments.
Driveway of the filling station must be cemented for smooth movement of vehicles, it added.
Nobody will be allowed to install any filling stations without getting licences from explosive directorate and fire service authorities.
The BPC will consider allowing installation of filling station at CNG refuelling stations if they have necessary infrastructure for setting up filling stations.
The BPC will also allow those CNG refuelling stations which are yet to get gas connection for setting up filling station at the existing infrastructure.
-With New Age input
