Pilfering fuel from Mangalore - Bangalore pipeline is dangerous: IGP Alok Mohan

Pilfering fuel from Mangalore - Bangalore pipeline is dangerous: IGP Alok Mohan

Mangaloretoday News Network

Mangalore, March 19: The western range police informed reporters that pilfering fuel from the pipeline running between Mangalore and Bangalore is turning out to be very dangerous for life and property because it could cause fires. In June 2003, nearly 105 people were killed in a fire in a Nigerian village. The police also said that many have been arrested for scavenging or pilfering in Chikamagalur and DK districts.

Alok Mohan, the IGP of western range, said that he is sure that many cases of fuel pilfering will have been reported in the eastern range too. Last fortnight, two cases were reported by the Goribeedu Police Station, Chikamagalur and Pujalkatte Police Station, Belthangady, he added.

The petroleum pipeline between Mangalore and Bangalore, which is around 335km long, commences at Thokur in Mangalore and stretches to the outskirts of Bangalore rural, close to Nelamangala. It was constructed in 2000 and was incorporated with the southern petroleum grid two years later. Vandals had siphoned off fuel from the pipeline during the very first year of the pipeline’s existence at Neralike at Neriya in Belthangady, using a hose 1.5kms in length. They had then supplied this fuel at low rates to buses and trucks. This hose passed through a local water tank, and the high-speed diesel leaked into the water. The local people, who decided to investigate the matter, unearthed the hose and brought the matter to the notice of the authorities. Fuel has been siphoned off at Dondole in Dharmasthala in 2007 as well as Mudigere in 2008.

Petroleum companies have begun taking the issue of petroleum scavenging very seriously. A senior Petronet official said that the security personnel of various petroleum companies are now working in close collaboration with the police to end the menace of fuel pilfering. He said that illegal scavenging can cause major fires. 

Speaking about the dangers of scooping, an HPCL Pipelines Division official said that a special device called the scoop is used to cut the pipeline and provide a connection between the pipeline and a hose. Vandals had used a scoop to steal fuel in Belthangady. Admitting that such scoops are available only to licensed pipeline maintenance contractors, officials said that they still do not know how the vandals obtained the scoop. It has led them to believe that insiders could be involved in the pilfering activities at Belthangady.

The authorities are now toying with the ideal of using the services of CISF personnel to guard this vulnerable pipeline.