Monday, November 28 2005 18:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp, country's largest oil firm, has sought limiting the sale of subsidised kerosene sold through Public Distribution System (PDS) to people living below the poverty line (BPL) and ration card holders to prevent its diversion for adulteration of auto fuels.

IOC, whose lost a young IIM-passout sales officer to the adulteration mafia, blames the difference between the price of subsidised kerosene and petrol and diesel as the main reason for thriving adulteration business.

"We think supply of subsidised kerosene should be reduced to BPL families so as to reduce the number of users. This way scope of diversion gets limited," IOC Chairman S Behuria told reporters here.

IOC sales officer Manjunath was killed by a petrol pump owner in Lakhimpur Kehir in Uttar Pradesh after he detected adulteration.

Adulteration business had attained stature of a mafia due to differential pricing of kerosene and auto fuels, he said.

While kerosene is priced at less than Rs 10 a litre, a litre of diesel costs about Rs 32, making it highly lucrative for selling kerosene as diesel.

Behuria said a study by National Council of Applied Economic Research has established that diversion or leakage of PDS kerosene amounted to 38.6 per cent of its total sale.

The Petroleum Ministry had last month written to the states for their views on restricting the supply of subsidised kerosene to BPL cardholders.

The Ministry would hold a conference to discuss NCAER recommendations, mainly implementation of supply of PDS kerosene to BPL families only, making it available at fair price shops on a continuous basis for uplifting by the card holders whenever they would like.