24-hour strike of petrol dealers of Maharashtra

Sep 03: Around 3000 petrol dealers of Maharashtra went on strike since Sunday midnight protesting the faulty system of the fuel marker under the banner of Federation of All Maharashtra Petrol Dealers Association (FAMPEDA) despite the appeal of union minister of petroleum and natural gas, Murli Deora not to do so as the strike will do immense inconvenience to the people.

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Dealers have demanded that they should be provided with the marker testing kit so that even they could know whether they are receiving unadulterated oil. FAMPEDA has put forward its demand that the fuel marker testing kit be provided to all dealers before decanting the fuel in their tanks. In case of failing which they will resort to shut down on September 10 and 11.

The association release said that such step will not only do the corruption of the checking agency away but will also boost up the dealers confidence that they are ensuring qualitative delivery to the customers.

Currently SGS life science services, Europe’s largest bio-analytical facility which recently opened lab in India checks the fuel quality to ensure that no adulteration takes place.

Association charges that independent private agency checking fuel quality is fraught with corruption as no other agency can have a retest of the fuel under marketing discipline guidelines. And dealers are being harassed by the agency, claimed the association. They want to have an access to such adulteration test kits to check if the fuel supplied by the companies is adulterated. As at present they have no means to check the adulteration while they can only check the density. For lack of such test dealers pay the price in the form of their licenses being taken away by the company when they found adulterated oil.