The 24-hour strike by the petroleum dealers in the district has put the Sabarimala pilgrims to much hardship, as all petrol-diesel outlets in the district remained closed on Monday.
Condemned
The Akhila Bharatha Ayyappa Seva Sanghom (ABASS) and the Sabarimala Ayyappa Seva Samajom (SASS) have strongly condemned the closing down of the fuel outlets in the district, causing much inconvenience to the pilgrims coming from different parts of the country.
Deceived people
The petroleum dealers in Pathanamthitta had deceived the people by giving scant disregard to their earlier promise not to take part in any kind of strike or agitation during the Mandalam-Makaravilaku pilgrim season at Sabarimala, alleged D. Vijayakumar, ABASS national vice-president, and Kummanam Rajashekharan, SASS general secretary.
It is noteworthy that Pathanamthitta is the only district where the District Collector had not given any no-objection certificate for opening new petrol/diesel outlets, despite, as on Monday, six applications for NOC were pending with the district administration.
