State Minister for Energy AKM Mosharraf Hossain yesterday said a blue-coloured kerosene would be supplied in the market from July 1 so that this low-cost fuel cannot be mixed with other types of high-priced fuel like petrol and octane.

"This will be a new drive after we achieved hundred per cent success in checking cheating during sales at the filling stations," he told a seminar on "Fuel Quality in Bangladesh" here in the morning.

Bangladesh Automobiles Distributors Association (BADA) organised the seminar at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre on the fifth and last day of its Motor Show 2003.

Karim Ibrahim, Regional Manager of BP Middle East who flew in here from Dubai, presented the key-note paper at the seminar moderated by Financial Express Editor Moazzem Hossain.

It was addressed by BADA Chairman M Salahuddin, its Advisor Anwarul Islam Tarek, Prof Rafiqul Islam of Dhaka University and Faruk Talukdar, Managing Director of Sohag Paribahan, a leading transport operator.

The minister expressed the hope to achieve success in checking adulteration of fuel the way the authorities succeeded to stop measurement fraudulence through some strict measures.

He said if all the petrol-run vehicles could be converted into CNG it would help protect environment as well as check any kind of fuel adulteration. "We have a plan to convert all the vehicles to run with CNG within two years," he said.

Referring to the current CNG crisis in the city, the minister expressed his optimism for overcoming the problem by this month when more CNG refilling stations would go into operation.

In his key-note presentation, Karim Ibrahim described how the adulteration is taking place in Bangladesh and how this is affecting vehicles and human bodies.

"Adulteration is a crime...It's not only a financial crime. It's a crime against human being," he said noting that Bangladesh should overcome the problem step by step, taking lessons from other countries.

Referring to studies carried out by Bus Truck Owners' Association, Faruk Talukdar mentioned how the country is losing huge amount of money due to fuel adulteration.

He said owners of some 110,546 buses, minibuses and trucks had to spend Tk 1,497 crore so far to maintain their engines affected by adulterated fuel. Besides, another Tk 150 crore was spent for overhauling fuel injection pumps for the same reason.

Talukdar said due to adulterated fuel, the vehicles need additional oil that causes an extra spending of Tk 587 crore annually. Besides, contaminated fuel causes pollution and some 14 lakh people are affected a year by asthma and other respiratory diseases, causing death to many.