Licences of 200 petrol stations suspended

NEW DELHI, Nov 22 (UNI) — In a nationwide crack down on adulteration in petroleum products launched last month in the aftermath of unearthing of a major scam involving naphtha, the Petroleum Ministry has suspended licences of over 200 petrol stations.

Talking to newspersons, Petroleum Minister V.K. Ramamurthy said even the depots maintained by the national oil companies were not spared during the operations. A detailed report of the enforcement drive will be submitted to the Ministry within a week. The Ministry would take suitable follow-up action.

Mr Ramamurthy said the Ministry is seized of the complaint lodged by Shiv Sena member Mukesh Patel that processed naphtha used by a Mumbai-based petro-chemical major found its way to petrol stations and used in a big way for adulterating petrol. The charge against the company was that instead of returning the residue of processed naphtha to the public sector oil company, it was routed to a front company which in turn used it for adulterating petroleum products.

Mr Patel and Dr Balram Jakhar, Chairman of the standing committee on petroleum, have written to the Prime Minister drawing his attention to the major scam and have demanded a full-fledged inquiry.

Mr Ramamurthy admitted adulteration of petroleum products using kerosene continued unabated even after clamping 32 per cent import duty on private sector kerosene imports in this year’s Budget. Parallel marketers of kerosene were earlier exempted from payment of duty on import of kerosene.

The minister, however, ruled out the possibility of diluting the marketing guidelines announced by the ministry recently though the government was open to reasonable suggestions from traders. He appealed to the traders to cooperate with the government in putting down the menace of adulteration.