AGARTALA, October 08 (TIWN): Police personnel were deployed at petrol stations to regulate thousands of motorists who thronged the outlets fearing acute shortage of fuel in Agartala. The city has been reeling under limited fuel supplies for the past few days.While speaking to TIWN, Director of Food & Civil Supplies Soumitra Banerjee, today, said that a total of 86 loaded oil tankers in which 51 are of diesel, 25 are of petrol and 10 are of kerosene are on its way from Assam to Tripura. We expect that the situation would be normalized within tomorrow," said the Director. The state government has asked the petrol pump owners and operators to sell a maximum of two to five liters of fuel per vehicle. However, most of the petrol pumps in Tripura remained closed.

The state requires a total of one lakh liter petrol per day and the city requires a total of 25,000 liters of petrol per day, the director further said.

For the last seven days the people of the city are facing a huge crisis of petrol with most of the pumps shut down while only one petrol pump is reported operating but with  a shortfall. Due to this, people were seen waiting for refilling their vehicle tanks. While most of the pumps supplied fuel much less than the required quantity, few other ones were open for the whole day facing huge throng of vehicles.  On the other hand, anticipating further slash down of price of fuel, dealers of the state did not send advance requisition and payment to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which further deteriorated the situation, officials stated.

However, reacting on the issue the petrol pump owners of the city have said it was only a temporary problem caused by blockade of National Highway (NH) 44 in Meghalaya and also for the recent landside in Meghalaya and assured that the situation would be normalized, soon.

It may be mentioned here that the fuel that comes to the state from Assam has been disrupted due to the continuous blockade of National Highway (NH) 44 in Meghalaya till last September 28.And the same has hit the stock of petroleum products of the state and by that time demand of petrol and diesel went up dtrastically among the Durga puja revelers.

The NH 44 serves as the lifeline for Tripura, Mizoram, southern Assam (known as Barak Valley) and western Manipur.