Bunks fuel chaos, panic buying

BANGALORE: Petrol bunk owners held Bangalore to ransom on Tuesday to pressure the food and civil supplies department to stop raids on their establishments.

It succeeded, for the threat to stopping purchasing fuel from the oil companies triggered panic buying and anarchy all around, bringing the food and civil supplies department to its knees.

The contention of the bunk owners is that in a majority of the cases, the fuel comes adulterated from the oil companies and hence tankers supplying fuel should be subjected to checks.

Whatever the merit of the argument, panic buying in bunks that hadn't shut down resulted in vehicle owners having to undergo the trauma of waiting in long queues, paying blackmarket rates or getting into nasty scenes.

The police, especially the traffic police, remained mute spectators, doing nothing to maintain order. Traffic jams built up on all main and arterial roads, wherever bunks were located. M.G. Road, Kasturba Road, St Mark's Road, Koramangala main road, Jayanagar, South End Circle, Anand Rao Circle were all pictures of mob madness: the bigger vehicles elbowing the smaller ones and the usually nasty autorickshaw drivers thriving in the melee. Many petrol bunks closed shop. As a result, vehicles that ran out of fuel just stopped in the middle of busy roads, adding to the traffic chaos.

The Bangalore Petroleum Dealers' Association (BPDA) members spent many hours closeted with food and civil supplies commissioner G.V. Krishna Rao to work out ways to end the impasse.

BPDA President Sqn Ldr Bhushan Narang said the commissioner was receptive to their pleas. The BPDA has all along argued they receive petrol and diesel from tankers that the oil company sends after doing the density test. If the liquid has a density of 7.2 to 7.5, it passes the test as petrol. Anything higher is kerosene; above 8 is diesel. ``We receive petrol or diesel and sell it without any tests or questions. How can the same be tested and proved spurious and we be faulted for that?'' Narang asked why the department does not check private tankers that bring fuel to the city from Devanagundi, near Hoskote. ``A fair share of the fuel that is dumped on the bunks by these private tankers is all spurious,'' he claimed.

Narang said if fuel tested before offloading proves spurious when checked later, ``then by all means book the owner, close the bunks if necessary''.

Krishna Rao contended that they had received complaints from members of the public about poor quality of petrol in the city. ``We started with a raid on Select Service Station and picked a sample which failed the tests. But the bunk continued to run. Therefore, this time around, we raided the bunks, seized samples and seized the supplies till the laboratory reports came,'' he said.

At the end of the day, one thing was certain: the drive against adulterated petrol and other fuel had been aborted by the combined might of a powerful section of petrol bunk owners.

Narang said the department had agreed to work out an acceptable procedure to inspect the petrol bunks systematically in conformity with the law. Link to story:

http://www.timesofindia.com/today/26mban1.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 25, 2000

Answers

There today, here tomorrow? (certainly hope not), damn we've become very interconnected.

Hope no surprise winds starts blowing with these web strands fluttering like they are, putting strains on the other strands, argh.

We haven't even got thru January yet! I'm extremely happy with how things have turned out since the rollover, but with what's happening (and the almost total lack of hard news covering it), I think we could definitely be in for some interesting times ahead.

Don't care what they call it, sure won't be attributed to as Y2K or Century Date Change will it? Whatever it is, I don't like where it could be headed.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), January 25, 2000.

CARL JENKINS you are awesome! as well as a number of other info- hunters. have been lurking since early dec.thank you and the others for so much valuable info. this should remind us that desperate times will cause desperate people to do desperate things.

-- pam&bob (P&B prepped@pikes peak.com), January 25, 2000.

Carl,

Again, great post.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), January 26, 2000.

Thank You for the encouagement!!! It means a lot! This is an amazing story. It is like Alice following the rabbit! Back to chasing the wascally wabbit!!!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 26, 2000.

Good sleuthing Carl. I've had my stomach full of the Cuban boy but when it comes to news that's important to me, nothing, zilch, nada. Thanks again.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 26, 2000.