Nagpur: The fuel crisis that gripped the city through the week showed signs of easing on Friday, with panic-driven queues thinning at most petrol pumps, though a handful of outlets in Wadi, Ganeshpeth and Ramdaspeth remained shut due to stock depletion and supply delays.TOI visited multiple petrol pumps across the city and found most operating normally with routine demand. Pump operators reported a marked drop in the panic buying over the previous few days.A petrol pump operator in Wadi said the rush had largely subsided. “Consumers are now purchasing fuel as per regular needs,” the operator said, adding that after-effects of the surge continued to impact some outlets, leading to temporary closures. A senior district administration official said the situation eased considerably and added, “there is no need for panic buying. Supplies are stabilising and most petrol pumps are functioning normally”.The official attributed the continued closure of select pumps to two reasons. “In some cases, stocks were depleted due to excessive demand, and replenishment is already on the way. In other instances, delays may be linked to recent credit-related changes by oil companies, due to which fresh stock is yet to be received,” the official said. Authorities maintained that affected pumps were expected to resume operations within a day or two.On the domestic LPG cylinder front, dealers said the situation remained under pressure despite steady supply, with the wait time for deliveries holding at around eight days. Bablu Tiwari, state president of LPG Dealers Association of India, pointed to a technical bottleneck as the primary operational problem. “The situation continues to be the same, with the wait time now around eight days. Supply is steady, which is why we can keep the deliveries going, but our major problem is with the technical downtime of oil company servers. We are struggling to complete dealer authentication code (DAC) input in the system, without which the next delivery stock does not get released,” Tiwari said.The strain on dealer staff has been significant. Tiwari added that employees were staying back until 9pm and sometimes later amounting to 12-hour shifts daily. With supply lines improving on the petrol side, officials and dealers expressed confidence that complete normalcy would return shortly.
