Hyderabad, January 28: The oil mafia’s long arm covers not just Maharashtra but also has in its vicious grip Andhra Pradesh. Oil companies’ officials themselves admit the bitter fact.
If you are in Hyderabad, though, the danger of the precious fuel in your car/ bike being diluted is considerably…lesser.
“The possibility of adulteration at petrol bunks in the city is minimal as preventive checking is carried out every day. Field officers, vigilance officials and mobile laboratories are active and random sample checking is also conducted regularly,” assures an oil company official.
“Besides, the checking of density is done at the receiving location and since only a density variation of 0.003 is permissible, the chances of adulteration are reduced,” he points out.
But this is by no means a consolation. The other side of this adulteration business is frightening to say the least.
A majority of heavy vehicles allegedly blend diesel with kerosene or use just kerosene to save money. What they save in the short term is very harmful to the environment in the long run. Kerosene, though a cheaper fuel, causes three times as much pollution as petroleum.
“Usually trucks that transport kerosene and diesel are halted at secluded spots where kerosene is mixed with costly fuel. Operators use equipment such as pumps to transfer fuel,” sources told Express.Kerosene costs Rs 25 per litre in the black market (fair price shops sell it for Rs 13.50 a litre). Diesel on the other hand costs Rs 41.86 per litre.
So adulteration, for unscrupulous men, is a way of minting money. But some greedy wallahs are taking this a bit too far. “Many vehicles are now using just kerosene. Even though the life span of the diesel engine is reduced, the difference of money is so much that they can get the entire engine replaced every four years,” another official of an oil company explains.
“While petrol costs Rs 62 a litre, the adulterated mix costs less than half that price.
Therefore, the owner pockets over Rs 40,000- 50,000 per tanker,” a senior official of the Legal Metrology department says.
The official, who doesn’t want to be named, regrets that “tamper-proof locking system, monitoring of the movement of trucks through Global Positioning System (GPS), canalisation of kerosene import and issuance of biometric cards to the users of PDS kerosene and domestic LPG beginning with some large cities, have not controlled adulteration of kerosene.” Most autorickshaws that you see everywhere run on fuel, which contain at least 50 per cent kerosene or kerosene and naphtha. The brighter side is that several of them have started switching over to LPG. “Last year (from April 2010 up to December 2010), the Legal Meteorology department alone has booked 658 cases against the dispensing pumps in the State for short delivery of fuels,” the official added.
–Agencies