Dist admn cancels NOC of petrol pump on NH-703A

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 9

Putting an end to all speculations pertaining to the running of the controversial filling station on NH-703A at Basti Bawa Khel area on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala road, the district administration has reportedly cancelled the no objection certificate (NOC) of the aforesaid filling station on Friday.

Girish Dayalan, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said though the officials of the company have approached the district authorities and asked for more time, they were refused permission to run the outlet on the present site.

“The company officials have asked us to grant another 90 days or to keep the NOC suspended until they change the layout plan. We refused to accept any of their demand and instead initiated the process of cancelling the NOC with immediate effect. A decision pertaining to this has been taken and orders are likely to be issued on Monday,” said Dayalan.

Earlier, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had refused permission to allow the controversial outlet to run on NH-703A. The NHAI had asked the oil company to amend its layout plan as per the guidelines prescribed by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MRT&H) which it refused to do. The road was designated as national highway 703A last year.

The pump was set up last year within a 300 metre radius of another fuel station already existing on the highway, violating a key guideline of the ministry. Also, the guidelines say there should not be any service lane road within 100 meters of the fuel station but the aforesaid filling station violates that too.

Interestingly, the oil company approached the Municipal Corporation for getting an NOC a year after the declaration of the road as national highway. Surprisingly, neither the MCJ authorities nor the district administration was found aware of the fact that the site for which the NOC was sought is not under their purview and now belongs to the NHAI. On the basis of NOCs received by the MCJ and DFC, Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav issued an NOC to the Indian Oil Company on March 30 last year.

Following this, the IOCL allocated the site to a dealer who made huge investments to grab the opportunity to run a petrol pump on a highway that would run between Jalandhar, Sultanpur Lodhi and Pindi before culminating at Makhu. However, the alleged nexus was exposed after the NOC was challenged by another party who later approached the MRT&H over the issue.

Subsequently, the ministry’s regional office asked its local officials to conduct an inspection of the pump at Basti Bawa Khel locality. Two sub-divisional officers of the central works division were deputed for inspection on February 3 this year and they found that the pump was not in conformity with the norms set up by the ministry.

Alleging connivance between the District Controller, Food and Civil Supplies Officer and the oil company, Gurmeet Monty Sehgal, spokesperson, Petrol Pump Dealers Association, said a criminal case should immediately be registered against the oil company officials for misleading the district administration and wasting public money. “The Ministry of Petroleum should examine such cases and serve a severe reprimand to oil companies that keep on opening outlets setting aside norms laid under the Petroleum Act,” said Sehgal.

He also demanded that the oil company should compensate the dealer and allocate another outlet to him.