Again, 23-year-old Abdul Kalam’s family had a hard time to shift him to Sion Hospital for a CT scan as most ambulances were not operational. “Since morning I have been frantically calling up ambulance services but most were helpless as there was no fuel. We were supposed to reach hospital by 1 pm for CT scan but we reached by 7 pm,” said Nasrunisa, Kalam’s mother.

According to operators of ambulance services, the petrol pumps were denying refill to ambulances running without patients. Anand Chanyal of the Bhagwati ambulance serivces said: “Of the five ambulances we’ve, only two are functional as only these two managed to get fuel. Pumps denied fuel to ambulances that ran without patients.”