Many leaders of the agitating workers went underground fearing arrests under the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), which many state governments invoked to tackle the employees' strike which the Delhi High Court has ruled illegal.
The oil sector officers' association, an umbrella organisation of 45,000 employees in the public oil sector companies, called for an indefinite strike from Wednesday to force the government to give them wage hikes.
But consumers have already started feeling the impact. A large number of petrol vends ran out of stocks after they did not get replenishments of petroleum products.
Traffic jams were witnessed at several places in the State Thursday evening as people queued up with their vehicles at retail petrol vends fearing they would not get fuel on Friday.
