Oil strike

Yesterday, during lunchtime, one of my colleague was mentioning that there was a long queue in the Petrol station when he went to fill petrol and was cribbing about it.

I wasn't paying much attention...but came to know about the reality of the strike after watching news at night.

Today morning, as a precautionary measure, went to fill petrol even though i had enough for a day travel. When it comes to petrol stations, eventhough there are many, few of them end up as our favorite ones...mainly because of a good experience at some time in the past and ofcourse the confidence that there is no adulteration of petrol...and i seem to like BPCL stations more and hate IOC and IBP stations.

Went to the regular BPCL station (once upon a time, these guys asked the girl/lady drivers to skip the long queue and come forward :) eventhough, i am against any special preference as a girl, i did take this advantage because it's a total pain to pull the vehicle in a long queue...)

It was closed with a board,"No stock." On the adjacent side was IOC station and petrol was available. There was a long 4 wheeler queue, but 2 wheeler queue wasn't that bad. I was wondering whether it's really needed to fill petrol in that station. Leaving aside the apprehension, merged into the queue and filled petrol for Rs.150. Guess, i was one of the few morons who didn't fill a full tank...the guy next to me was filling the tank for Rs.400 which made me wonder about the fuel tank capacity of a motorbike.

Later afternoon, after prolonged procrastination, i happened to go to the LPG dealer to enquire about the Gas transfer as i am moving out of the city. As expected, the account was inactive and the person said i should go to the main office and get it activated first. When i called up the main office, the lady mentioned that there are no officers at work. I asked as whether it was a holiday for them. She replied incredulously,"Haven't you heard of the Oil strike?". I remembered the strike at that time and replied,"Oh. So even LPG Dealer offices are closed now?" She replied,"Yes. When you get to know from TV that the strike is called off, come to office and get your connection activated".

This made me wonder when it's really going to happen.

Interestingly, our government has talked tough and forced the Oil sector officials to withdraw the strike...

“We made it very clear that either you work or you go to jail,” Oil Secretary R.S. Pandey, the senior-most bureaucrat in the ministry, said today. “That worked.”

Although delayed, an excellent act from government part.
Now, i wonder what they are going to do regarding the Trucker's strike...

Government seems to have started with a Public Interest commercial in TV with Mr. Brahm Dutt, Secretary, Roadtransport & Highways requesting them to withdraw the strike in the national interest (saw it in Timesnow channel now :))