BENGALURU: The All Karnataka Federation of Petroleum Traders has urged the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to act against indiscriminate freezing of Oil Marketing Company (OMC) dealers’ bank accounts over flagged digital transactions.
The federation sought lien marking instead of the blanket freeze, enhanced POS security, vendor accountability and a time-bound mechanism to restore accounts within 48 hours.
In its petition to the PMO’s Public Grievance Cell, the federation said the current cyber-crime protocols and inadequate digital payment safeguards disrupt fuel retail operations. As dealers process thousands of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and card transactions daily in support of the Digital India initiative, even a single transaction flagged as suspicious reportedly leads the Cyber Crime Division to direct banks to freeze the dealer’s operational account.
The federation cited a recent case in the state where the account of a dealer, a victim of third-party fraud, was frozen for a week following 27 complaints.
The blanket freeze prevented the dealer from procuring fuel, paying employees’ salaries and remitting GST and other statutory taxes, the federation said.
The federation urged the PMO to direct the public sector OMCs in Mumbai to overhaul their e-payment policies. It proposed mandatory advanced firewall and security subscriptions for all EDC (Electronic Data Capture) and POS machines supplied by authorised vendors. It also called for vendor accountability, stating that if fraudulent transactions occur through OMC-provided machines, the EDC vendor should be held responsible instead of penalising the dealers.
The federation sought direct coordination between cyber-crime authorities and authorised POS vendors on a pan-India basis to trace frauds. It also demanded that dedicated fraud e-payment grievance cells be set up in each OMC to tackle issues related to transactions without halting dealer operations.