Mysuru: From tomorrow evening 6 pm onward till 6 am on Sunday, petrol bunks across Mysuru will go dry. Petroleum dealers from Mysuru, Mandya, and Chamarajanagar will go on strike on Saturday urging government to fulfil their demands as well as to implement the Apoorva Chandra report.

Responding to the call from the Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers, which is reportedly backed by the Akhila Karnataka Federation of Petroleum Traders, the dealers from the three districts announced that they would join the protest planned in two phases.

Petrol stations will operate in a single shift from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the dealers will not buy petroleum products from the depots on April 11. As the petroleum dealers will not purchase the fuel from depots on Saturday, it is expected that it will affect common people as the bunks may go dry. On Sunday, by default there will be no fuel supply to the petrol bunks in city and it will be only on Monday that the bunks will replenish their supplies. The public have already started to rush to the petrol bunks aware of the protest.

In the second phase, the petrol stations will remain closed from the April 28 midnight to April 29 midnight. On that day too, dealers will not buy fuel from the depots.  President, Federation of Mysuru Petroleum Dealers S K Dinesh said, “Implementation of the Apurva Chandra Committee report stopping the blending of ethanol with fossil fuel or decreasing the percentage of blending from 10 to 5 are among the demands of the dealers.

“We just want to implement Apporva Chandra committee report, In late 2010 a committee was formed by our ministry MOPNG headed by its joint secretary Apporva Chandra and members of all direct marketing Companies, IOCL, BPCL, HPCL and others to look into the grievance of Dealers.

“After a detailed study their recommendations was submitted to ministry. We the dealers want the ministry to  implement the recommendations, nothing more. Even after 5 years, the  govt is not implementing its own report . All associations including CIPD,AIPD, all request MOPNG to implement the recommendations, but CIPD were called by ministry for 5 meetings by this new government and whatever assurance given by them are not fulfilled,” he added.

The federation which comprises of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum dealers, will not be operating in the city. Over 75 petrol bunks in city will be closing down on the day which would affect vehicle commuters of the city. Approximately 2 lakhs litres petrol and 3 lakh litres of diesel are sold in these petrol bunks.