Petrol sold at Rs 200 a litre

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

IMPHAL, September 8: Manipur is the only state where petrol pumps remain open from 7 am to 4 pm on working days and till 12 noon on Sundays. During general strikes, blockades and other forms of agitations these pumps remain shut down. And Manipur is a state where there are public disorders and disruptions of normal life at least 200 days in a year. On one occasions some ga groups had imposed blockade against Manipur for 103 days during which this landlocked state was starved of consumer items and people could not travel along the highways with even one kg of apple for persol consumption. The blockade would have continued had it been for the fact that Manmohon Singh and Sonia Gandhi happened to visit Manipur ahead of the Assembly elections.

There had been demands to keep the petrol pumps open round the clock as is done in other states. Initially the government refused saying that in view of the law and order which had hit the rock bottom miscreants shall target the petrol pumps for heists. Much later the government yielded and said that some petrol pumps in the Imphal town shall open round the clock on rotation basis. However this experiment did not last even a few days.

When delved a little deeper The Sentinel learned many interesting facts. Being an insurgency afflicted state there are many agencies and departments which get fuel to run the official vehicles round the clock. turally more than half of the fuel thus given is siphoned off to the black-market. Besides almost all vehicles in government departments are supplying petrol and diesel to the mushrooming roadside vendors and kiosks.

After putting two and two together one can easily understand why the government is turning a blind eye to the presence of the roadside vendors and kiosks. The drivers of the government vehicles should have outlets for the pilfered fuel. This explains why the oil pumps remain closed during nighttime, holidays and strikes.

Some weeks there was a huge rockslide at Dimapur spping the NH 2. Besides a rickety bridge over the Barak river had caved it thereby suspending the vehicular traffic. Taking undue advantage of it prices of all consumer items were hiked. Potato is sold at Rs 30 a kg while only those families with dishonest income can afford onion. Though it will take more than ten days to restore traffic of the oil tankers and Lorries the government has not taken up any steps. As a result the roadside vendors are selling petrol at Rs 200 a litre. The government has failed to check this kind of black-market. There is special arrangement to distribute petrol for the media persons and other privileged sections. Not knowing that the distribution was for such sections many persons had joined the queue in the petrol pump. turally they revolted when they are informed in the morning when the pumps were opened that there would be no public sale. There was no distribution of fuel on that day.

As Manipur has general strikes, blockades, landslips and other forms of obstruction some scheming persons had bought oil tankers to lift petrol from Assam and store it in underground tanks. They are earning huge profit since there are such obstructions every month. There had been fires claiming some lives. However these powerful businessmen were never booked since they can and do grease several powerful palms.

As the government never pulls up the petrol pump owners who shut up within minutes of blockades, strikes despite the fact that there is fuel reserve to last a month owners and roadside vendors are earning staggering profits everyday. As bones are thrown here and there has not been much hue and cry and the hanky panky business continues.