(India)
A petrol pump racket using chips to tamper with the petrol pump metres across the state of Maharashtra was busted on Saturday, the police said. The police, with the permission from the Maharashtra Director General of Police, raided petrol pumps in Nashik, Pune and Khopoli and found that nearly 2000 fuel dispensing machine metres were rigged. Following the revelation, the police sealed seven petrol pumps across the state after learning that they have been operating with rigged metres which show a false reading to customers while pumping less fuel than what has been paid for by the customers.
“We have frozen one pump each in Thane, Dombiwali, Khopoli, Pune and Nashik and two at Bhiwandi in the past couple of days. All of them were functioning with the chips. We were tipped off about a few of them by Shetye in May. Others showed up on our radar due to the complaints we had been getting from regular customers, which were verified by our sources,” said DCP Trimukhe.
Through rigged petrol pump metres, the police believe that the pumps have each pocketed Rs 5.5 lakh a month by dispensing 5-7 per cent less for every litre bought. The tampering of the pump metres came to the fore when some motorists in Thane, Dombivali, and Khopoli lodged complaints with local police stations stating that they had been short-changed by the fuel stations.
The raids led to the discovery that some chips were fitted to the fuel dispensing machines which made the metres run faster than the petrol being pumped out. The first such raid took place at a petrol pump in Manpada. At Manpada, for 5 litres, the machine would dispense 4.8 litres. “Over a day, it leads to pilfering of substantial amounts,” said an officer.
