Vehicle owners scout for petrol in Chennai

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Saturday turned out to be a horrible day for owners of petrol cars and two-wheelers in the city as they joined their diesel vehicle counterparts enduring hardships in the scorching summer heat hunting for petrol pumps selling the fuel.

Altercations and confusions marked the day in several fuel outlets as the vehicle owners waited in long queues to fill fuel.

Chennaiites had to sweat it out to fill their vehicle tanks as over 100 pumps ran out of fuel, barring a few on Poonamallee High Road and in Saidapet and T Nagar. However, the scenario in north Chennai was better, compared to south Chennai.

“My vehicle ran out of petrol at Adyar, and I have crossed over a dozen petrol pumps en route, but I am yet to get petrol,” Mr Venkatramanaa, who looked exhausted, told DC at an outlet on Gopathi Narayana Salai in T. Nagar.

He had to have his vehicle towed all the way from Adyar to T. Nagar for want of petrol. When this correspondent, who was also there waiting for petrol, told him the time, he was shocked, “I started to tow my vehicle around 1 pm from Adyar, so I have been towing the vehicle for over two hours.

” Though, he said, a pump in Saidapet was dispensing petrol, over 100 cars and two-wheelers had queued up there and he figured it would take at least a few hours to reach the pump.

This was not a one-off incident on Saturday. Diesel car owner Sanjai said irritably, after being turned away by several outlets, they (either dealers or oil companies) must be hoarding expecting a price hike.

There is no need for us to hoard petrol when the government is considering a rollback.
The dealers will only want to empty their stock before the rollback, declared a dealer.