IMPHAL, August 6: Several school buses that had arrived to fill diesel at the M/s K Nilo & Sons at Langjing Achouba have expressed dissatisfaction with the oil pump.
M/s K Nilo & Sons has been acting as the distribution centre for the school buses acting under the allocation order of the Indian Oil Corporation.
A large number of school buses had arrived at the oil pump acting on an earlier notification, that the oil pump will be distributing diesel to the school bus.
However, the oil pump failed to start distribution even at 7:30am, which left several of the drivers fuming.
Most of the buses were supposed to pick up students from different places at specified time as done on normal basis, however, since the pump had delayed in the distribution of the oil, many bus drivers complained of not being able to make it on time.
Though the oil pump had started giving the oil from 8 am, many buses were seen returning back without filling their tanks due to the time factor.
For those buses that did manage to get deisel today, only 15 litres of diesel was allowed per bus and an extra charge of Rs 20 was also cut from each bus by the Association of the school buses for unknown reasons, informed a driver.
Not only this, few buses were seen loading more than 20-25 litres of diesel from the pump thereby breaking the formulated guideline, he added.
Meanwhile, expressing foul play over the manner of the oil pump in distributing fuel, K Kumar, Asst secy of the All Manipur School Bus Owners Association said the oil pump was supposed to give a total of 8000 litres (8 KL) of diesel to the vehicles and added that it could have been a lot more better and purposeful if the buses were allowed atleast 30/40 litres of diesel.
He further said according to an earlier allocation notice issued by the IOC, 5000 litres of diesel was reserved for school buses while the remaining 3000 litres were for tanker escorts at the pump.
Even though there was much hiccup in distributing fuel by the pump, many local vendors (black marketers) nearby the station were seen openly selling petrol and diesel at a much higher price.
Petrol was selling at Rs 120 per litre while diesel was being sold for Rs 75 per litre in the immediate vicinity of the petrol pump.