Why is Kerosene Blue?

Why is Kerosene Blue?

Kerosene is the fuel that is basically used for cooking purpose in olden days in India. Earlier Kerosene was used as the fuel for cooking by many people in the society. Today, high class and middle class people are using N-butane cylinders as gasoline for cooking. The people who are experiencing extreme poverty are still using coal or kerosene as fuel for cooking. In India, ration is provided for the people with low income. Government provides rice, sugar and kerosene to the people in subsidized rates in the ration stores meant for this purpose. The ration provided by the Government is assured to have reached the people when the ration store keeper will check the white card or pink card issued by the Government. White card holders are low income group who are eligible to get rice, sugar as well as Kerosene at low rates fixed by the government. The other income group people are issued Pink card which can only be used to get sugar in limited quantities and not kerosene or rice at all.

Today Indian government has passed a rule that those who are possessing two gasoline cylinders for a single family are ineligible to get any of rations from government stores. These people have to buy the ration in normal stores where the rates are high.

Now, Let us talk about the blue color of the kerosene. The Kerosene issued by the government for subsidized rates has to be different from the normal white kerosene available in the other stores. In order to make the differentiation in the kerosene issued by the Government stores, Indian Government supplies kerosene to the people in blue color. The Indian government gets blue kerosene from the stores that are specially manufactured for supplying to the government. This blue dyed kerosene is issued to the people only by the government stores and not in any other store. Blue color is just to identify the low priced kerosene supplied by the government.