Petrol station dealers across Maharashtra went on a day-long strike, protesting alleged harassment by an agency authorised to check fuel quality.
"The strike is on," president, Federation of Petroleum Dealers Association Ravi Shinde told PTI.
"The checking of fuel by independent agency SGS is fraught with corruption while a re-test by any other agency is barred under the modified marketing discipline guidelines with the penalty being the termination of dealerships," the association said.
The petrol dealers, under the umbrella of FAMPEDA, had said in a statement that they also wanted access to fuel adulteration test kits, failing which they would resort to a shutdown on September 10 and 11.
The 2,700-odd
petrol dealers across the state of Maharashtra have been harassed by the said inspection agency, FAMPEDA claimed.
Consequently, all the 2,700 petrol pumps in Maharashtra under FAMPEDA are closed. 240 petrol pumps under FAMPEDA are closed, out of total 256 petrol pumps in Mumbai.
Government had introduced a marker system for kerosene last October to check dealers from mixing the cooking fuel with motor fuels like petrol and diesel.
It had mandated SGS Life Science Services, which has Europe's largest bio-analytical facility, to check against adulteration, according to FAMPEDA. SGS has recently opened its lab in India.