Petrol strike called off in West Bengal

Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta

The West Bengal Petroleum Dealers Association has called off its strike following a meeting with representatives of oil companies.

The oil companies have assured the petroleum dealers of looking into their grievances and said that the issue of supply of 'adulterated' petrol was a case of genuine 'mistake'.

Top officials of Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum had met with the WBPDA leaders to resolve the crisis.

The dealers were told that the fuel provided to them would be totally devoid of contamination and stricter measures would be adopted to ensure that no such blunder takes place in the future.

Following this assurance, the West Bengal petrol dealers decided to call off their state-wide strike. Earlier the WBPDA had warned the state government that no vehicles would be able to ply in the state from Wednesday if its demands are not met. About 1,500 petrol pumps in Calcutta were on an indefinite strike since Sunday midnight, disrupting normal life in West Bengal.

The WBPDA president Kalyan Bhadra had said on Tuesday that the dealers were peeved at the state government's attitude towards their nine-point charter of demands.

"We have only been asking the government to curb the fraudulent practice of supplying adulterated diesel by the oil companies. I raised the same issue with Union petroleum ministry, but to no avail. They simply chose to overlook our grievances. Since the state transport minister is not in Calcutta, I sincerely hope somebody from the state government would come up with assurances to redress our complaints. But any dilly-dallying on the part of the state government would be quite drastic as we are in no mood to call off the strike," Bhadra had said.

However, with the oil companies resolving to mend the issue and to redress the dealers' grievances, the association has called off its strike.

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