Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 12: An acute petrol crisis is hovering over entire Ladakh region because of inordinate delay in opening of Leh-Srinagar National Highway.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that acute petrol crisis is all set to grip the cold desert within next two days as no fresh supply of oil could be made to the region due to continuous closure of Leh-Srinagar National Highway and availability of very limited stock.
Generally, the Leh-Srinagar National Highway is opened by mid April but this time the Border Roads Organization, which is responsible for the maintenance of this highway, could not throw it open because of heavy snowfall at Zojila. Though the BRO managed to open the highway for light motor vehicles yesterday, the same could not be of any help to the region as after crossing of 50 vehicles the road again got blocked.
“Moreover, there is no possibility of highway becoming traffic worthy for the heavy motor vehicles for next eight to 10 days”, sources said, adding “as very limited stock of petrol is available the Leh and Kargil districts are all set to face acute crisis”.
According to the official information, at present only 25 Kilo Litre petrol is available in Leh and 23 KL in Kargil district and this stock will exhaust within next few days as daily consumption of petrol in Leh and Kargil is 15 KL and 12 KL respectively.
Sources said that keeping in view very limited stock of petrol, the concerned authorities in both the districts have restricted the supply of petrol to the vehicles. “What to talk of the civilians and tourists vehicles, even the official vehicles would not be able to ply after two days”, they said.
In response to a question, sources said, “keeping in view the prevailing situation, the Leh district administration has made a request to the Army for providing petrol from its stock”, adding “even the Border Roads Organization has been approached for gearing up road clearance work so that movement of oil tankers to the cold desert region is ensured as early as possible”.
“If the official vehicles will come to grinding halt the functioning in various officers across these districts will suffer immensely”, they said while replying to another question, adding even the prevailing situation would cause inconvenience to the tourists as large number of tourist vehicles are also operating on petrol.
About the available of diesel, they said, “at present sufficient quantity of diesel is available in both the districts and there are no immediate chances of diesel crisis”.
Sources said that Government should take the issue seriously and make arrangements for petrol keeping in view strategic importance of the region, which is surrounded by hostile neighbors—Pakistan and China.
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