New Delhi: The Government of the United Kingdom has put the military on standby to address a supply chain crisis that has led fuel pumps to run dry amid panic-buying by motorists.
A warning of fuel supply shortages at the end of last week has led to panic buying, with long lines of cars waiting for hours to fill up, and resulted in pumps in cities across Britain running dry.
The government of the UK has already announced plans to issues visas for 5000 foreign truck drivers and suspended competition laws. Apart from truck drivers, many companies have reported shortages – including fast-food chains, Supermarket shelves have also run dry.
The British government did not consider the shortages of truck drivers as a big problem, but last week when oil giant BP and Exxon Mobil announced that they were being forced to close some gas stations as a result of trucks driver shortage quickly changed that.
Many oil companies in the UK have warned that they did not have enough tank drivers to move diesel and petrol from refineries to gas stations. The UK requires around 100,000 truck drivers to solve this problem.
The Business Minister of the UK Kwasi Kwarteng said that “150 soldiers have been mobilized, and would be driving tankers within few days.”
(_Vinayak Barot)
