The government on Wednesday allowed Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, a subsidiary of the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, to set up 500 petrol stations in the country to market transport fuels under its own name and logo.

The company, which operates 9.69 million tonnes refinery at Mangalore in Karnataka, fulfills the investment requirement of Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) in building infrastructure in the hydrocarbon sector, an official release said in New Delhi.

MRPL is the sixth company, after deregulation of the oil sector, to have been granted the licence to set up petrol stations in the country. Earlier, marketing rights were given to Reliance Industries Ltd (5,849 petrol stations), Shell India Pvt Ltd (2000), Essar Oil (1700), ONGC (1,100) and Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (510).

This would increase the number of players in the marketing of transportation fuels in the country to 10 from the present four public sector entities -- Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and IBP, it said.

Initially, MRPL proposes to set up retail outlets in 10 states including Karnataka (110), Kerala (22), Tamil Nadu (56), Andhra Pradesh (56), Goa (12), Maharashtra (110), Gujarat (56), Madhya Pradesh (22), Rajasthan (28) and Haryana (28).