Before the oil strike ended : Long queues outside petrol pumps, traffic jams, panic stories across city

A doctor with a heart patient and an ambulance with a drying tank broke the queue at a petrol pump at Moledina Road on Friday afternoon, approached a dealer and burst into tears.

“He requested me to provide fuel. He said the patient’s life was in such danger that there was not enough time for him to wait in queue,” said Ali Daruwalla of the Pune Petrol Dealers’ Association’s managing committee.

Several such nightmares unfolded in the city all day, continuing till the strike in the oil sector was called off in the evening, and possibly even later.

Panic reigned at petrol pumps with fuel available only in a few, even though oil marketing companies claimed that 300 tankers had supplied enough to meet almost 90 per cent of the city’s requirements.

The queue broken by the doctor was a common sight at pumps. So serpentine were the queues at Senapati Bapat Road and Moledina Road that hundreds of vehicles spilled on to the main roads, leading to traffic jams.

Minor scuffles frequently broke out and heavy police security was deployed.

“I have been standing in the queue for more than an hour but I am nowhere near the middle of the queue,” Suresh Pawar said at Senapati Bapat Road around 12.30 pm.

“I waited in queue for close to an hour and then was told they had run out of fuel. Luckily my brother had managed to refuel his vehicle so I have been using his bike since Thursday,” said K Assay, a software engineer.

... contd.