From the 1st of Ramadan to the 18th, I have been visiting Utility Stores all over for Utility Oil, a brand that is being heavily advertised in media by the Utility Stores Corporation of Pakistan as a specially subsidized item in its Ramadan package. The stores that I have visited in Lalazar, Mareer Hasssan and Saddur Rawalpindi did not have it. So it has become a daily ritual for me now to make a call to one Utility Store of these localities to inquire about Rs 103/-per liter Utility Oil that I wish to send to the flood-affected people in Malakand Agency. All my efforts so far have been in vain as I have been unable to buy a single liter of the item as yet. I have been asking the same futile question everyday that when can I have the oil and they give the same stereotyped answer that I shall have it when it arrives and is put up for sale. Frustrated and disillusioned, I finally called one oil mill in Islamabad industrial area to ask why were they were not supplying their merchandise to Utility Stores? The owner, who is a personal friend of mine, told me the Utility Stores Corporation of Pakistan is lifting four tons of Utility Oil from his factory alone. I asked him why was the oil, then, not available at the Utility Stores? Pat came the reply that because the entire hierarchy of Utility Stores, including the managerial staff, are in connivance with the shopkeepers. My final comment on this sordid personal experience is that why is Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani befooling the people with claims about his 'subsidized Ramadan Package? -DR. BABUR ZAHIRUDDIN, Lahore, August 29.