Truckers’ strike leads to panic buying of fuel at Amritsar petrol stations

Tribune News Service

Manmeet Singh Gill

Amritsar, January 2

The truckers’ strike has caused panic buying of diesel and petrol with long queues of two-wheelers and four-wheelers witnessed at petrol pumps here on Tuesday. The strike led to depleting of the supply of fuel, besides petrol pumps going dry as long queues were seen at these places since last night. The petrol pump dealers stated that the strike by the transporters had slowed down the supply, but the foremost reason behind the pumps running dry is panic buying by residents.

Messages being circulated on social media and other platforms forced the residents to believe that the pumps might run dry due to the protest by the transporters. This led to over buying by the residents which worsened the situation.

Long queues of vehicles were seen at most of the petrol pumps last night. The same situation continued since the morning of Tuesday. Subsequently, a large number of pumps closed their operations by afternoon.

“Usually, a two-wheeler owner buys petrol worth Rs 200 and a four-wheeler owner spends Rs 1,000, but now everyone is thinking of filling up the fuel tank to the full. The sale of diesel and petrol has gone up,” said a petrol pump worker.

Joginder Pal Dhingra, a leader of the Petrol Pump Dealers’ Association, said, “We appeal to the residents not to panic as the protest has already been called off and hopefully the petrol pumps would start supplying fuel as soon as the oil tankers reach here.” He said most of the pumps had exhausted their stocks till this afternoon.

Deputy Commissioner Ghansham Thori said the supply of petrol and diesel to the state is made through three terminals — Jalandhar, Sangrur and Bathinda. “As per information from the district administration of Jalandhar, the oil tanker operators have called off their protest and fuel supply would be restored soon.” He said the district administration and the Food and Civil Supplies Department were ensuring that there was no shortage of products there.

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