India: Fuel station owners, government at odds over who pays for clean toilets

Some fuel stations are threatening to go on strike against regulations imposed last year ordering stations to offer round-the-clock clean toilets, according to press reports picked up in mid-January in Petro Daily – Petroleum Bazar.

“It is difficult to maintain free toilets if they are open to everyone. The government is neither setting up toilets on its own nor enforcing mandatory toilet at toll plazas,” a fuel station owner in Chennai told The Times of India, which prepared the original report.

Following a tightening of standards, problems with toilets during inspections could lead to full mandatory closure of the entire establishment for up to seven days as a sanction while the problem is fixed in addition to costly fines, the report said.

The Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers Association, which is said to represent the majority of fuel station owners in India, has been pushing a proposal under which fuel stations should charge for every service provided, including toilets.

According to a report from February 2014 by The Times of India, country authorities were at that time already notified that stations were supposed to have round-the-clock water and toilet facilities with signs alerting of their existence.

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