Today I was witness to a bizarre happening .I saw how a group of individuals ready to bleed the resources of their own country to feed their insatiable greed.I am talking of a group of dealerships of a public sector oil marketing company joining hands with corruptible government officials to bully the company to allow them to take away more product than they are entitled for in lieu of their payments.Before I describe the details,its necessary to detail the process of oil distribution mechanism at the oil company storage locations.Petroleum oils like petrol and diesel are received either thru pipelines or rail or road supplies.The oil thus received at storage locations on the basis of stock transfer within an oil company or purchased from other oil marketing companies for distribution to retail outlets or petrol pumps,as they are popularly called.The product from installation to retail outlets are supplied in tank lorries ,which are calibrated by the weights and measures department of the state government.The calibration is done by first calibrating a smaller measure,say of 50 litre or 100 litre at weights and measure (W&M) depertment office and then calibrating the measures higher capacity,say 1000 litres or 2000 litres of oil storage locations with the smaller measures calibrated at W&M office earlier.You must be aware of the craze among all the high and mighty citizens of this country ,including politicians,business persons and all those who matter.The reason is quite simple.This business allows you scope to make quick bucks through various shortcuts.Delivering short in measure to the customer, adulterating the products with kerosene and other similar chemicals,taking advantage of frequent pre-announced price hikes are few of the routes to make fast bucks.The game is so wide spread and well established that all those who are entrusted with the job of thwarting these evil practices have abandoned their respective roles and decided to become willing partners to fill their own coffers of greed.The scale of distribution petroleum products is so large and extent of rot is so deep that it's humanly impossible for the corporations to stem the rot with the archaic and undependable technology, partners in crime goverment agencies and sheer lack of will of goverment to do anything to help the situation.The officials posted to man these locations are people from different regions of country generally not residents of the place of their postings.As these PSUs come under indirect intervention thru parliamentary committees and the concerned oil ministries,every official in the organization including the top role holders are under immense pressure to bow to the commands from those in power.Thus although all of the officials in the system are aware of the rot ,but they are unwilling to take cognizance of the issue because it may then force them to take a stand and face the wrath of powerful lobbies ,at times making them victims like Late Manjunath.So for them,the best course is to first ignore,if not them push it under carpet and if that doesnt suffice,make the weak among their collegues a scapegoat and move ahead.They keep looking for a new posting either thru promotion or transfer to avoid the situation.That too,if they themselves have not become willing partners in the rot.The culture is very simple-don't bring any problem to me which may make my position undefendable or you would be fixed by making a sacrificial scapegoat.So strong is this unsaid rule that anyone even thining of the contrary is hurriedly dubbed as insane or inefficient shirking responsibility.I am sure that there is nothing new in this case and many such tactics are in place elsewhere too.That's why even the Prime Mininster of the nation is forced to admit that a large chunk of developmental fund is being gobbled up by the middlemen.But so sever is the crisis that even he doesn't go beyond this rhetoric.
So whatever be the case,let us see how a corporation,a navaratna PSU of Govt. of India is being forced to bear the loss on account of the unfathomable greed of some mean individuals.For some years now one of the corporations took an agressive stand in the market by promising correct quality and quantity (Q&Q) to the customers.They followed their promise with specific initiatives to check frequent unperformance by their dealerships at retail outlet (RO) level.Earlier the game of adulteration & delivering short was very easy for the dealerships because of the archaic dispensing machines and quality monitoring devices.But of late,smart ones in the corpoation decided to go for ultra modern gadgets both at the RO level as well as at their laboratories to restrict the menace.The delivery mechanism at the storage location level more or less the same as earlier.Thus manipulations at RO level in Q&Q became rather difficult and to that extant the monitoring became easy with the increase in agencies checking the Q&Q norms at the RO including the consumers.The government introduced the system of marking the Public Distribution System Kerosene with chemicals ,which could be traced in the aduleterated fuels,even if the level of adulteration was abysmal.All this put too much of pressure on dealers' margin,who are in this bussiness not to work hard to earn their margins,but to make fast bucks.After all most of them have bribed their way thru the system to get their prized money making machine-a petrol pump.There a huge price difference between the price of PDS kerosene and petrol or diesel and adulterating the fuel with kerosene was time tested method to make quick bucks.But this marker system was hampering it badly.In fact,a few ROs were pulled up heavily on this account.The dealerships ganged up and put pressure on politicians,who were RO dealers themselves or were recipient of huge election funds from these dealers.It had its immediate effect.During a very short period,the whole scheme of marking kerosene was abandoned without ant explanation from anyone.The dealers thought that the battle is won,but they forgot that in the meantime the corporations had invested huge funds in upgrading their infrastructure at RO and laboratories.So the corporations were in position to detect their nefarious acts even now to a large extent.This was making them impatient as most of them are habituated of big margins in their business to support their luxurious lifestyles.The easier way was to attack the oil storage installations,where technology was still medieval and largely dependent on the accredit ion by state agencies.They made the W&M department their partners and got them to excess calibrate the vessels of their tank lorries so that they can carry more product than they pay for .Suppose a tank lorry is to be calibrated for carrying 20000 litres of product.Now thru manipulation of master measure and measures at storage locations which are used to calibrate the tank lorries ,they got the W&M people to mark the dip sticks used to check these tank lorries in such a way that even if they are being marked and certified to fill just 20000 litres,in actuality they would be carrying product in excess of 20000 litres.Thus the dealer will pay for just 20000 litres,but will take more than 20000 litres from the corporation.In short, fraudulently the tank lorries were excess calibrated.Now every litre of petrol roughly costs about 50+ rupees and Diesel costs 40+ rupees.So if a dealer is able to get his tank lorry excess calibrated by 100 litre (I have heard of cases of over-calibration by 200 litres),the gain is roughly 4000-5000 rupees.If the dealer is lifting 20 loads in a month,he is earning about 80000-100000 rupees just like that by cheating the corporation in league with the obliging govt. agency.It's easy to observe the discrepancy in calibration of the tank lorry by observing the filling pattern on the filling bays at storage location.Also,when the same TLs are calibrated at other oil terminals they are found excess calibrated.When they are sent to western region bridging locations for filling,they are reported over-calibrated there.Still,the companies are in no position either to stop this malpractice or to punish the guilty dealers as they are being backed to hilt by the obliging govt. agencies.The situation has become so farcical that the same W&M has calibrated the calibration towers differently thrice in a short span of six months,yet they say that all fault lies with the oil companies' facilities.This gives a much sought handle to the evil minded gang of dealerships.They are not only able to get away with the excess product,but they bring the whole distribution setup to its knees.Thus the corporation officials are pressurized and demoralized and the dealerships ride roughshod over them even in other matters.The willing media is brought in by the vested interests to rub the insult further.The seniors get away by putting up the blame upon the subordinates.The subordinates try to save their skin by writing long winding explanations for the product losses observed at the storage locations.The dealerships enjoy their ill gotten money and keep bullying the corporation even further.The malaise is so deep rooted and the dealerships are so powerful that leave apart any effort to punish the erring dealerships,the corporations are in the habit of recognizing such erring dealerships at the end of each financial year because these dealerships also become highest volume uplifters by then.Such is the state of affairs in oil companies and no body wants to take it up to a conclusive solution.Those who are idealist are looking for another Manjunath to highlight the case.But even the modus operandi of goons highlighted by Manjunath still continues.So there is no end in sight.Countries' resources are being looted by rapacious bunch of individuals.And the coporation officials are left scampering to save their loin cloth. And we all hope to become the world leaders by 2020 with such termites eating away at the roots of our nation!!!Nah yeh sahi business nahi hai yaar!!Nah nah,yeh toh business nahi kaha ja sakta hai bhai!!!
So whatever be the case,let us see how a corporation,a navaratna PSU of Govt. of India is being forced to bear the loss on account of the unfathomable greed of some mean individuals.For some years now one of the corporations took an agressive stand in the market by promising correct quality and quantity (Q&Q) to the customers.They followed their promise with specific initiatives to check frequent unperformance by their dealerships at retail outlet (RO) level.Earlier the game of adulteration & delivering short was very easy for the dealerships because of the archaic dispensing machines and quality monitoring devices.But of late,smart ones in the corpoation decided to go for ultra modern gadgets both at the RO level as well as at their laboratories to restrict the menace.The delivery mechanism at the storage location level more or less the same as earlier.Thus manipulations at RO level in Q&Q became rather difficult and to that extant the monitoring became easy with the increase in agencies checking the Q&Q norms at the RO including the consumers.The government introduced the system of marking the Public Distribution System Kerosene with chemicals ,which could be traced in the aduleterated fuels,even if the level of adulteration was abysmal.All this put too much of pressure on dealers' margin,who are in this bussiness not to work hard to earn their margins,but to make fast bucks.After all most of them have bribed their way thru the system to get their prized money making machine-a petrol pump.There a huge price difference between the price of PDS kerosene and petrol or diesel and adulterating the fuel with kerosene was time tested method to make quick bucks.But this marker system was hampering it badly.In fact,a few ROs were pulled up heavily on this account.The dealerships ganged up and put pressure on politicians,who were RO dealers themselves or were recipient of huge election funds from these dealers.It had its immediate effect.During a very short period,the whole scheme of marking kerosene was abandoned without ant explanation from anyone.The dealers thought that the battle is won,but they forgot that in the meantime the corporations had invested huge funds in upgrading their infrastructure at RO and laboratories.So the corporations were in position to detect their nefarious acts even now to a large extent.This was making them impatient as most of them are habituated of big margins in their business to support their luxurious lifestyles.The easier way was to attack the oil storage installations,where technology was still medieval and largely dependent on the accredit ion by state agencies.They made the W&M department their partners and got them to excess calibrate the vessels of their tank lorries so that they can carry more product than they pay for .Suppose a tank lorry is to be calibrated for carrying 20000 litres of product.Now thru manipulation of master measure and measures at storage locations which are used to calibrate the tank lorries ,they got the W&M people to mark the dip sticks used to check these tank lorries in such a way that even if they are being marked and certified to fill just 20000 litres,in actuality they would be carrying product in excess of 20000 litres.Thus the dealer will pay for just 20000 litres,but will take more than 20000 litres from the corporation.In short, fraudulently the tank lorries were excess calibrated.Now every litre of petrol roughly costs about 50+ rupees and Diesel costs 40+ rupees.So if a dealer is able to get his tank lorry excess calibrated by 100 litre (I have heard of cases of over-calibration by 200 litres),the gain is roughly 4000-5000 rupees.If the dealer is lifting 20 loads in a month,he is earning about 80000-100000 rupees just like that by cheating the corporation in league with the obliging govt. agency.It's easy to observe the discrepancy in calibration of the tank lorry by observing the filling pattern on the filling bays at storage location.Also,when the same TLs are calibrated at other oil terminals they are found excess calibrated.When they are sent to western region bridging locations for filling,they are reported over-calibrated there.Still,the companies are in no position either to stop this malpractice or to punish the guilty dealers as they are being backed to hilt by the obliging govt. agencies.The situation has become so farcical that the same W&M has calibrated the calibration towers differently thrice in a short span of six months,yet they say that all fault lies with the oil companies' facilities.This gives a much sought handle to the evil minded gang of dealerships.They are not only able to get away with the excess product,but they bring the whole distribution setup to its knees.Thus the corporation officials are pressurized and demoralized and the dealerships ride roughshod over them even in other matters.The willing media is brought in by the vested interests to rub the insult further.The seniors get away by putting up the blame upon the subordinates.The subordinates try to save their skin by writing long winding explanations for the product losses observed at the storage locations.The dealerships enjoy their ill gotten money and keep bullying the corporation even further.The malaise is so deep rooted and the dealerships are so powerful that leave apart any effort to punish the erring dealerships,the corporations are in the habit of recognizing such erring dealerships at the end of each financial year because these dealerships also become highest volume uplifters by then.Such is the state of affairs in oil companies and no body wants to take it up to a conclusive solution.Those who are idealist are looking for another Manjunath to highlight the case.But even the modus operandi of goons highlighted by Manjunath still continues.So there is no end in sight.Countries' resources are being looted by rapacious bunch of individuals.And the coporation officials are left scampering to save their loin cloth. And we all hope to become the world leaders by 2020 with such termites eating away at the roots of our nation!!!Nah yeh sahi business nahi hai yaar!!Nah nah,yeh toh business nahi kaha ja sakta hai bhai!!!
