India’s Barauni Refinery ran into a crisis of sorts after its recent crude imports had to be returned to its supplier because it did not meet the agreed technical specifications, thus affecting supplies both to the Indian market and Nepal. But the natural course of action in such a scenario would have been to import petrol from Haldiya Refinery after due arrangement with IOC. This is where NOC fell short. The state-owned monopoly took more than a week to resort to this alternative and the effect is visible in the form of serpentine queues of vehicles everywhere and the “No Petrol” signs in many of the petrol pumps across the country.
This latest shortage of petrol is also a clear pointer that NOC runs into a crisis if there is obstruction in supplies for just about a week, indicating the need to upgrade its storage infrastructure. While NOC may claim that it had storage facilities equivalent to 15 days of demand, it is evident that it does not have the wherewithal to handle demand of over a week owning to the significant rise in the number of vehicles in the past decade and almost zero upgradation of storage facilities in the corresponding period. It is high time NOC started thinking about expending resources to do something on this front—the sooner, the better! What makes a compelling case for upgrading NOC’s storage capacity is also the regularity with which obstructions (bandas, transporters’ strikes, landslides, etc) come its way.
The managerial lapses that came to the fore this time is also an indication that the state-owned monopoly is in need of pressing reforms. It is not for nothing that NOC keeps on making it to the news for all the wrong reasons such as pervasive corruption and huge losses. If NOC gets down to refurbishing both its hardware and software, irritants such as fuel shortage will naturally become a thing of the past. Meanwhile, here’s something to cheer about: NOC says that the present shortage will be over by mid-week!
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