Petrol pumps to remain shut for 7 hours from Friday midnight

It means you will won’t be able to get fuel for you vehicles up to 7am on November 12

If you are stranded for fuel on Friday night, you will have to wait for seven hours.

It means you will won’t be able to get fuel for you vehicles up to 7am on November 12. (Pratik Chorge/HT photo)

To avoid unnecessary spats with the public over accepting the scrapped notes, the association of petrol pump dealers has decided to keep all the pumps shut for seven hours after Friday midnight. The decision is likely to affect all private and even public vehicles.

It means you will won’t be able to get fuel for you vehicles up to 7am on November 12. Petrol Dealers’ Association, the body of petrol dealers, has already written to the state level coordinator and informed him about the decision on Thursday. Maharashtra has around 4,500 petrol pumps, including about 250 in Mumbai.

The Narendra Modi government has decided to scrap the existing currency notes of Rs500 and Rs1,000 .

The government, however, allowed these notes at petrol pumps and other establishments for 72 hours.

The deadline is November 11, midnight.

Ravi Shinde, leader of the association, said that they had taken the decision to avoid any law and order situation. “As per the government directives, we cannot accept discontinued currencies of Rs500 and Rs1,000, but the public will come with these notes after midnight and demand fuel,” said Shinde.

According to petrol dealers, the public had not yet received sufficient amount of new currencies and banks do not have ample supply. So people will continue to crowd the pumps and so, they need to be kept shut to avoid unnecessary trouble with the public.

Meanwhile, taxi and auto rickshaw drivers claimed that their business continued to be affected on the second consecutive day as people avoided them because of shortage of small denominations. According to taxi union leader AL Quadros, the daily earning of taxi drivers had also gone down to 60%.

“Today was another bad day for cabbies as no passengers are hailing taxis. Our business almost came to a standstill and we do not know for how many days the situation will continue,” said Quadros.

Bus operators and truckers claimed that their business was also badly hit because of the shortage of low denomination currencies. According to transporters, all the operators were affected because they did not have money to pay for at petrol pumps and paying advance to drivers and cleaners.