Chennai:
After three days of chaos that marked the city as fuel stations ran dry, normalcy is returning to Chennai with supplies of petrol and diesel finally being restored.
The Tamil Nadu government has brought in supplies from Kerala through the sea. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had yesterday announced that three ships carrying 67,000 kilolitres of petrol and diesel had arrived in Chennai; 2000 kilolitres of diesel had come in by road from Bangalore.
The most visible signs of improvement in the situation were seen at fuel stations where the mad scramble witnessed in the last three days had disappeared. Most petrol pumps in the city had run out of stocks of diesel and petrol with fuel either being rationed or being sold at a premium. This had resulted in massive queues outside bunks.
"I never thought they would give me thirty litres. I'm happy. This means, in a day or two, the situation would be completely normal," said a resident.
The reason for the pumps drying up over the last 48 hours had been attributed by officials to "no supplies from oil companies." Two major refineries in the state - MRPL and CPCL - saw unplanned shutdowns in April for almost a month and over a week respectively.
"I'm not happy. The government should have planned and brought fuel quite early when they learnt the Mangalore refinery had problem. See how much of hardship we had to bear," said another angry customer.
The unprecedented fuel crisis had, in fact, led to several offices in the city to allow their employees to work from their homes yesterday as petrol pumps remained closed for the third day in a row.