New Delhi: Anglo-Dutch giant Shell has made a come back to auto fuel retailing in India after nearly three decades, commissioning its first petrol pump in Bangalore last week.

Royal Dutch/Shell was forced out of India in 1976 after its petrol pump network and refinery at Mumbai were nationalised and renamed Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL).

"We have commissioned first of our retail outlets at Bangalore last week," Vikram S Mehta, chairman of Shell India told reporters on sidelines of an oil and gas conference in New Delhi.

Auto fuel retailing in India is monopolised by public sector firms - IOC, BPCL and HPCL - and a very small number of petrol pumps are owned by private sector Reliance Industries Ltd and Essar Oil.

Shell will be the first multinational oil firm to begin fuel retailing in India after opening up of the sector in April 2002.

Shell, which has a license to set up 2000 petrol pumps in the country, will invest Rs 250 crore in phase-I of its retail plan that is concentrated on setting up petrol pumps in Southern India.

"To begin with, we are concentrated on southern States. We are now embarked on setting up petrol stations all across the south and will expand to other regions of the country in due course," he said.