(a) whether the public sector oil companies have failed to check adulteration in petroleum products;
(b) if so, whether the Government has held a meeting with the public sector oil companies in the matter recently; and
(c) if so, the directions given by the Government to these oil companies in this regard?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM & NATURAL GAS (SHRI DINSHA PATEL)
(a): The possibility of adulteration of petrol/diesel by some unscrupulous elements cannot be ruled out due to huge price difference between petrol/diesel and various adulterants available in the market and the easy miscibility of these products with petrol/diesel.
(b) to (c): Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas held a meeting with the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) on 19.03.2006 at Mumbai and reviewed the existing practices being followed by the OMCs to combat adulteration with the objective of drawing a blue-print for preventing this menace. This meeting was followed by another meeting taken by the Secretary (P&NG) on 12.04.2006. During these meetings, the OMCs were inter alia asked to take the following steps: -
(i) OMCs to have third party certification of all the retail outlets selling more than 100 KL per month.
(ii) OMCs to monitor the movement of all Tank Trucks viz, Company owned/Dealer owned/Contractor tank trucks through Global Positioning System (GPS) based vehicle tracking system.
(iii) OMCs to introduce marking of potential adulterants at refineries/manufacturing units and import locations all over the country.
(iv) OMCs to identify and suggest the names of reputed agencies/NGOs who could be entrusted with the drawal/testing of MS/HSD samples from retail outlets.
(v) OMCs to undertake automation of all their retail outlets selling more than 200 KL per month.