Karnataka - Mysore   

Experts favour motor LPG stations in city

Staff Correspondent

The call for such units has not only come from environmentalists, but also from autorickshaw drivers

MYSORE: The increasing number of vehicles and the rise in the pollution level here have underscored the importance of expediting the process of setting up liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) dispensing stations.

The call for LPG dispensing units in the city has not only come from energy experts and environmentalists, but also from motorists, particularly autorickshaw drivers, who are contributing most to the increasing pollution level.

Though the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, Mysore, sent a proposal to the State coordinator for public sector oil companies to open LPG dispensing stations in Mysore a few months ago, little progress has been made in this direction.

The Deputy Commissioner, Selva Kumar, told The Hindu that representatives of State-owned oil companies are yet to complete the feasibility survey to set up LPG dispensing stations. With the number of vehicles in the city crossing the three-lakh mark and the quantity of petrol and diesel exceeding the one-lakh litre mark earlier this year, the amount of carbon monoxide and other lethal gases that are emitted into the atmosphere have reached a disconcerting level, causing anxiety among the environmentalists.

The area in the vicinity of the Mysore Palace is suffering from high levels of pollution. "The city of palaces will soon degenerate into a city of pollution," said M. Mahadevaswamy, President of the Mysore Adarsha Autorickshaw Drivers' Forum. There are 13,000 autorickshaws in Mysore and each vehicle run up to 100 km a day within a radius of 10 km. from the palace, he added.

The autorickshaw drivers' request to permit them to use commercial cylinders until automobile LPG dispensing units are established in the city was rejected at a meeting of the Road Transport Authority (RTA) last week. The Road Transport Officer (RTO), Mysore, N.G. Gayathri, said autorickshaw drivers will not be allowed to use LPG. "The ban on the use of LPG as fuel in autorickshaws stands," she said even as RTA officials pointed out that permission to use LPG as fuel in automobiles will lead to motorists diverting cooking gas for powering their vehicles, leading to a shortage of LPG. Despite the ban on use of LPG for automobiles, most autorickshaw drivers and other motorists continue to divert subsidised cooking gas to power their vehicles, officials of the Department of Food and Civil Supplies in Mysore said.

Meanwhile, energy expert and consumer activist Bhamy V. Shenoy said the authorities, instead of working towards setting up exclusive LPG dispensing stations, should allow petrol stations to sell automobile LPG. "Having one or two LPG dispensing stations will not help motorists who stay in different parts of the city. In the absence of easy accessibility to LPG, motorists will resort to siphoning off cooking gas for the purpose," he said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Most varsity English teachers barred from evaluation
Federation activists protest ouster of Siddaramaiah
Experts favour motor LPG stations in city
Workshop on hearing impairment begins today
In Mysore Today

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu