Despite plaints, cheating at petrol bunks goes unabated in Nizamabad and Kamareddy

Nizamabad/Kamareddy: With the rising petrol and diesel prices and also the demand for consumption, the oil sellers are resorting to cheating the consumers by providing adulterated fuel and by tweaking the metres thereby filling less fuel. And all this has been going on right under the nose of Civil Supplies department.

Though many motorists have been complaining against the irregularities in petrol bunks in Kamareddy and Nizamabad districts, the officials of Civil Supplies and Weights and Measurement departments are not conducting the inspections to check the quality standards. Speaking to The Hans India, Nizamabad District Supply Officer Padmaja stated that the department's duty was only to give licence but not to monitor.

In a recent case in Nizamabad, a customer's vehicle was filled with fuel adulterated with water at a petrol bunk. When the consumer complained against the adulteration, the Civil Supplies department, instead of penalising the bunk owner, had stated that the underground leakage had reduced the quality of fuel. Further, similar cases of tweaking of metres have also come to light. Janardhan, a motorist, recently had the fuel filled in Armor. However, his vehicle stopped in the middle of the journey after it died out of fuel. When the irate Janardhan pulled up the bunk owner and the staff for filling less fuel, the concerned bunk owner and staff denied of any such irregularity besides threatening him. Further, instances of selling petrol mixed with diesel have also come to light. Many of the motorists are worried about the frequent repairs to their vehicles due to the use of adulterated fuel.

There are 154 petrol and diesel bunks in Nizamabad district and the sale of fuel touches 1.5 lakh litres a day with a large number of vehicles plying on Kanyakumari-Varanasi national highway, that extends for over 200 kilometres in the Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts. However, the facilities at these petrol bunks are meagre with no drinking water, bathrooms and air pumps.

The consumers who are suffering eventually have been demanding the Collectors and Joint Collectors concerned to strictly monitor the quality of fuel at the bunks and also direct the Revenue Divisional Officers and Tahsildars to carry out regular checks. They are also demanding the officials concerned to check the accuracy of fuel dispensing machines at the bunks.

Meanwhile, under Section 13 (C) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, every petrol bunk operator must ensure that filter papers and equipment for testing the density fuel are available at the bunks. Quality testing should be done at the bunks before dispensing the fuel and fleecing of consumers must be stopped with the officials intervention and strict adherence to rules.