Why does fuel get adulterated in India?

One fourth of India falls below what is called the Poverty Line (anyone earning less than around Rs. 500 (around $ 10) a month, falls in that bracket). The government of India subsidizes essential items like grain, cooking kerosene and other such things for these poorest of poor people through the Public Distribution System (PDS). So the kerosene, which costs Rs. 35 per litre in the open market, is sold at Rs. 11 per litre, through such PDS shops to people holding BPL (Below Poverty Line) cards.

Diesel is sold at around the same rate as the open market rate for kerosene. The main adulterating agent used in diesel is kerosene. Obviously, mixing diesel with kerosene from the open market creates no financial incentive.

The incentive is to mix it with the subsidized kerosene through PDS shops – what Manjunath called the ‘poor people’s kerosene.’
The official incentive to the petrol pump in selling fuel is so low, and so much pilferage happens in tankers even before the fuel reaches the petrol pump, that it is not possible to recover the investment in a petrol pump, without resorting to adulteration. Hence it is widespread, the value of the black money, thus generated, runs into millions and millions of rupees.

These millions attract a mafia that operates with political patronage. And what is getting mixed is poor people’s kerosene. So, there is no kerosene available to them, unless they buy it in black, for which they don’t have the money. But they need kerosene to cook, it’s essential, so that creates law and order problems.

And we’ve not yet spoken about the immense pollution that adulterated fuel causes-from vehicles, generators, booster irrigation pumps and tractors.
So it’s not just a double whammy, it’s many times over that.

Manjunath knew all this, and still took them on.