The oil marketing body has urged the regulator to refrain from exerting pressure on deregulated products and to stop demanding customer-level data for non-regulated items.
It further asked the regulator to align its conduct with the government’s Ease of Doing Business vision and focus on genuine regulatory issues rather than harassing industry players.
Tariq Wazir Ali, in a letter sent to the OGRA chairman on Thursday, criticised the authority’s “unwarranted interference” in the solvent trade – a deregulated segment – where the regulator has been repeatedly demanding business and customer data from Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) and refineries.
“OGRA’s actions are not only beyond its legal mandate but are damaging confidence in the legitimate petroleum trade,” OMAP said. “The regulator seems more interested in poking its nose into deregulated areas instead of fixing the crises within its core jurisdiction.”
OMAP noted that OGRA’s repeated data demands for deregulated products, such as solvents and by-products, have created confusion, discouraged legal production, and exposed companies to unnecessary scrutiny. “These are free-market goods, fully taxed and outside OGRA’s pricing or licensing control,” the association emphasised.