Lucknow: The murder of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) sales official S Manjunath has not just come as a huge shock to the public sector giant, but has also brought to light the large scale malpractices and corruption that prevails in the retail oil business.
Both officials of oil companies as well as the petrol pump owners admit that selling adulterated petrol is nothing new in the state.
The Petrol Dealers Association in Lucknow kept all petrol pumps in the city closed for two hours on Saturday as mark of sympathy towards the slain IOC official.
Petrol pump owners say that ever since Manjunath's murder, virtually every petrol pump owner in the state is being seen as a villain.
General secretary, Lucknow Petrol Dealers Association, Mohammad Zubair has appealed to all people that all gas station owners should not be seen as murderers and villains.
The Indian Oil Corporation, which has about thirty-eight sales officials in Uttar Pradesh, is already working on providing security to all the sales officials in the state.
General Manager IOC, Sharat Meshram says, "This is the first incident of its kind. Nothing like this has ever happened before. We are working towards providing security for all the officers in the state so that such an incident doesn't repeat itself."
There are nearly 2,500 petrol pumps in the state and unofficial figures suggest that almost 60 per cent of the petrol pumps sell adulterated oil.
Even IOC, which is supposed to conduct routine surveys of the petrol pumps in the state, is unable to bring the culprits to task, although IOC officials admit they conduct routine checks.
The brutal murder of S Manjunath is a chilling reminder of the seriousness of the problem at hand.
And while Indian oil officials and petrol pump owners readily admit that adulteration of petrol continues to haunt UP, they have no concrete answers to fight this problem.
(With Abhishek Patni in Lucknow)
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