BENGALURU: Petrol dealers in India are up in arms over the government and oil majors asking for sensitive personal information like caste, religion and constituency of the over 10 lakh employees at petrol pumps. They have said such "data mining by the government is unconstitutional and an extreme

."

The Consortium of Indian Petroleum Dealers (CIPD) Punjab Petroleum Dealers Association and others are protesting over directives sent between June 5 and 6, by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd,

Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

On June 11, CIPD wrote a letter to the three firms saying the initiative is a "violation of fundamental rights." The consortium has told the oil majors they will not be sharing this information as its impinges on their privacy. The issue was precipitated this month when Bharat Petroleum allegedly stopped supplies to some dealers in Haryana because of non-submission of details.

The PSUs are said to have asked for 24 sets of data. The three PSUs say the government needs this information for the Recognition of Prior Learning scheme under PM’s Skill Development Scheme, but CIPD is not buying it.