The north-eastern Indian state of Tripura is in the middle of an acute fuel crisis. Monsoon rains and landslides have badly damaged a highway that connects the remote region to the rest of the country.

A huge shortage of petrol and diesel has forced the shutdown of key services for nearly six weeks now. This has  led to fierce protests in Tripura.

Thousands of trucks and lorries carrying petrol and diesel have been stranded outside the state, as authorities struggle to repair the highway that connects Tripura to mainland India.

People are angry. They stand in long, serpentine queues outside petrol pumps for hours. The shortage has also driven up the price of petrol from 73 rupees to more than 300 rupees a litre.

Angry mobs protest before the house of Tripura chief minister, Manik Sarkar,forcing police to deploy several cordons of paramilitary troops to secure his safety.

With fuel so dear, many, including several state ministers have opted to walk to work. Public transport has been adversely impacted and the number of buses to towns outside Agartala have dropped sharply.

Schools have also cancelled bus services for students.

Authorities say they expect the situation to improve after repairs along a 20km (12.4 mile) stretch of highway allowed nearly 140 trucks with petrol and diesel to enter the state on Monday and Tuesday.

Government authorities have said that they repaired the road “in record time” and have also denied charges of mismanagement.

“The Indian government did not respond to our calls for help. The Assam [state] government did nothing to repair the damaged stretch of the highway which runs through their state,” Tripura Transport Minister Manik Dey told the media.

But that has done little to stem the criticism.

“Since such disruption of transport on the Assam-Agartala highway is an annual phenomenon, why not plan for it in advance?” Pradyot Kishore Manikya, a Congress leader and a member of Tripura’s former ruling royal family asked.

But the worst-affected seem to be drivers and owners of taxi and other transport services.

“How can I run my taxi the whole day if they give only two litres of petrol to a person a day? That allowance may work with normal residents, but not for us,” Jatan Poddar, who runs a small taxi service in Agartala, complained.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu promised to “try sending” petrol and diesel by train to Tripura from the neighbouring state of Assam, as he launched a new express train service to Agartala from the capital Delhi  last Sunday.

It may take another week for the situation to normalize,observers feel.

  development, fuel, Northeast, Tripura