Joint surprise will conduct at late night

Mizoram government and Mizoram Commercial Vehicles Union (MCVU) have decided to conduct joint surprise checks at late nights to ensure that petrol and diesel are not sold to black marketeers, causing excruciating fuel scarcity in the state, MCVU leaders said. MCVU leaders met food, civil supplies & consumer affairs minister B. Lalchhanzova apprised the latter on the issue of acute shortage of fuel in the state even as quantity of oil being lifted from neighbouring Assam has been near normal despite poor road conditions.

The state food, civil supplies & consumer affairs department officials also have earlier confirmed that there is no need for panic buying of fuel as the inflow of petrol and diesel has been sufficient to meet the requirements of the state. According to the MCVU, apart from the oil quota of ethnic strife-torn Manipur hill areas transported through Mizoram, the quantity of fuel inflow is considered sufficient. However, unilateral investigation conducted by the commercial transport body revealed that large quantities of fuel have been siphoned off by owners of the filling stations in the dead of the nights.

“It was discovered that a large number of trucks are being used to purchase oil from the filling stations by storing fuel in oil barrel/drums to be sold at higher rates to Myanmar and Bangladesh, as well as inside the state,” Dina Tlau, one of the MCVU leaders alleged. Tlau said that transportation of large quantity of fuel by trucks using oil barrels, not by oil tankers, will be prohibited in the state from now on. This, however, will not include contractors moving fuel to work places.