To bail out Tripura from its acute fuel crisis, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas along with the Ministry of Railways have come together to transport petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) products through roll-on roll-off (Ro-Ro) process to the North-Eastern State.
In Ro-Ro, trucks carrying bulk products and LPG cylinders are loaded on open Railway wagons -- a first such initiative in the North-East.
Tripura has been facing an acute crisis of petrol and diesel as the vehicular movement through the National Highway 8 has been seriously affected for the last three months due to damage of a portion at Karimganj in Assam following incessant rains and water-logging.
"The rake carrying Indian Oil POL trucks was flagged off for Churaibari, Tripura from Bhanga, Assam today. This is the first of its kind initiative in the North East," State- owned Indian Oil (IOC) said in a statement issued here.
Simultaneously, Indian Oil trucks are being re-routed to Tripura through the alternate circuitous route, reserved exclusively for POL and LPG movement, it added.
Traditionally, Indian Oil supplies POL products to Tripura from its depot at Dharmanagar (Tripura). Since October 2014, the products are received at Dharmanagar depot from IOC's Guwahati depot (Betkuchi) by road after the suspension of rail movement due to track conversion from metre to broad gauge.
Though Railways has restored the section for passenger traffic, POL movement has not yet started.
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