Petrol pricing may officially be out of the government’s control, but a veiled intervention by the government has resulted in Indian Oil Corp and other state-run oil marketing firms Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) differing on what is the best solution. BPCL and HPCL see IndianOil's call for moving into a price control regime as a “retrograde step”.

The government's fuel pricing policy led IndianOil, India’s largest oil marketing company, to post the biggest-ever quarterly loss at Rs 22,451 crore in the April-June period. While the oil marketing companies are compensated for revenue losses on diesel, cooking gas and kerosene, they are forced to take losses on account of petrol on their books.