Brijesh Garodi
Daijiworld Media Network—Mangalore (BG)

Mangalore, May 23: The whole of the country is in shock, especially the middle class people of the society, seeing the news flashed on the evening of Wednesday May 23 – “Petrol price hiked by Rs 8 plus from tonight”.

The first thing we do after reading this news is to rush to the nearest fuelling station to fill our vehicles with petrol as the same will be much costlier tomorrow morning. People have been used to the frequent increase in fuel price in recent times. But this is the biggest hike in petrol rates at Rs 8.

The fuelling stations in and around the city were filled with vehicles. It was indeed amazing to see such a crowd and a long queue of vehicles in the fuelling stations, especially for those who were not aware of this flash news.

On the other hand, some fuelling stations were found to have created scarcity of petrol to make some profit out of this hike.

Cyril D’Souza, president, MACO fueling station, Balmatta, says that it is shocking to see such a long queue of vehicles in the station and it is for the first time that he is witnessing such a large crowd at this station, which is almost nine times greater than the usual sales scale. He said that people have started rushing to the pump from 6.30 pm and that they would keep the station open up to midnight for the benefit of customers.

Raviraj, a medical representative from Maryhill, says that people like him, the ones who use motorbikes for their job will be badly affected by this hike and it is a big loss.

Dionysius D’Sa, a petrol car owner, says that the hike in fuel price is a big hit especially to middle class society. “The public should be informed at least 3 days prior to the hike and it is not fair to increase the price at such short notice. This hike is the biggest hike as far as I am aware,” he said.

It was also quite a common scene to see people fueling their vehicles cursing the central and the state governments.