Published On : Wed, Jun 17th, 2015

Petrol-pumps befool the customers, supply less quantity of fuel

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Nagpur: The Nagpurtoday team had been receiving complaints over many days that the petrol outlets in the city were supplying less quantity of petrol to the customers. But, it was beyond the scope of reasoning as to how the quantity of fuel could be supplied less when the meter seemed rightly showing the reading. When investigated, it was found that this is the story of almost all petrol outlets.
Our reporter, on Wednesday, happened to get fuel filled in his bike at one of the petrol pumps in the city (name deliberately not mentioned). He noticed that in front of him a Maruti Swift  D-zire car was in queue to get the fuel filled. As it was raining, the car-driver felt it easy to hand over a note of Rs 1000 to the pump operator while sitting in the car itself. The pump operator set ‘zero’ on the fuel-meter, and feeding the amount of Rs 1000 on the meter, he started supplying the petrol to the car through nozzle. It was quite natural that when the meter was visibly set right, the right amount of petrol would be supplied.  But it was not so.
The reporter carefully noticed that when the pump operator was supplying the fuel with the nozzle, his fingers were making some movement in such a way that no one could doubt his trick. The pump operator repeated his tricks after 20 or 30 seconds. This raised a doubt in the mind of the reporter. However, the car moved away, and then came a bike to get petrol worth Rs 100. The pump operator set the meter at ‘zero’ and played the same trick this time for 8 to 10 seconds only. The reporter first thought that the nozzle at the hand of operator must be having some trouble.
But when his turn came to get the fuel filled, he handed over to the operator a sum of Rs 200 to buy petrol. As he was careful about the finger-movements of the operator, he just caught his hand as soon he noticed the same trick and pulled out his hand with nozzle. Such an interception by reporter confused the pump operator, and no amount of petrol was in flow through the nozzle.
It did not take much time for our reporter to smell the rat. It was noticed that though the meter is set at ‘0’, no amount of petrol will flow out if the nozzle is trickily closed. The switch-on system on the meter has nothing to do with the supply of fuel if the nozzle is closed. The meter will still continue to show running/ supplying the fuel. It is really agonizing to learn that all pump operators are instructed to play such tricks. If the supply of fuel from nozzle is blocked for 10 to 20 seconds one suffers the loss of Rs 50 at least. It is therefore advised that all customers should keenly observe the finger-movement of the pump operator rather than observing  the ‘0’ and the moving meter/ reading.