Petrol & diesel shortage will come to an end tonight: Jayalalithaa

3 ships carrying 67,000 kilo litres of diesel & petrol arrived at Chennai this afternoon

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today said that shortage of Petrol and Diesel in Chennai will come to an end tonight.

In a statement, the Chief Minister said a ship carrying 67,000 kilo litres of diesel and petrol from Kochi has reached the Chennai harbour and instructions have been given for the fuel to be immediately delivered to all the bunks in the city.

Besides, another 2,000 kilo litres of fuel are coming from Bangalore.

It was said that every day the fuel consumption in Chennai is around 2,100 litres and diesel requirment is around 2,500 litres.

Chennai Port officials confirmed the development and said a ship named Pratibha Warna, an oil tanker carrying high speed diesel, has been berthed at the Chennai port. The ship was brought by Indian Oil Corporation.

The officials added, the ship was carrying 19,162 tonnes of HSD, with nearly 4,500 tonnes discharged by the third shift last night. The balance quantity will be discharged by the end of the day or tomorrow morning.

They added, one more ship has been anchored on the outer harbour and expected to be berthed once Pratibha Warna moves out of the port.

It may be noted, around 1,000 petrol bunks went dry in and around Chennai for the last two days.

The increased demand of petrol and diesel for power generation has led to fuel shortage for consumers in and around Chennai. While this was the reason stated by the oil companies, petrol bunk operators have said there is shortage of Euro IV compliant petrol which is
used in Chennai and other places in the state.

The petrol owners are also of the view that this could be an artificial shortage created by the oil marketing companies, to make people forget about the recent price hike.

While on one side most of the petrol bunks have put no-stock boards, on the other, the petrol pumps which were opened had a huge que, which ran for about a kilo meter. This was the situation at Chennai and in the neigbouring districts of Tiruvallur and Kanchipuram.