Panic buying at certain petrol and diesel retail outlets has been reported in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra following which the Centre is strictly monitoring the supply situation, a senior official said on Monday.Addressing an inter-ministerial meeting amid the West Asia crisis, Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said citizens should avoid panic purchase of petrol, diesel and LPG as the Centre was making all efforts to ensure the availability of fuel.”Panic buying has been reported at few petrol/diesel retail outlets in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Our monitoring team found that agriculture as well as bulk demands by private entities pushed the supply side at these outlets,” she said.The official noted that states/Union Territories have been requested to closely watch the situation and take remedial measures.”We are also watching for any intermittent dry-outs and replenishing the stocks as and when required. So there is no need for panic buying as we have sufficient reserves,” Sharma added.The Department of Fertilisers said the fertiliser security remains strong, stable and well-managed, with overall availability consistently exceeding requirement. The overall stock position remains comfortable.”For the upcoming kharif season, the government has assessed the total fertiliser requirement at 390.54 lakh metric tonnes (LMT). Against this requirement, the current stock stands at approximately 200.12 LMT, which covers more than 51 per cent of the total need. This is significantly higher than the usual buffer level of about 33 per cent,” Aparna Sharma, Additional Secretary, Department of Fertilisers, said. She said approximately 117.6 LMT of fertilisers had been successfully added to the overall availability through a combination of imports and domestic production.”To tackle supply chain issues, nine meetings of the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) have been held to date. These meetings have been instrumental in ensuring adequate fertiliser availability, with most challenges having been effectively addressed by the EGoS,” she added.