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Call to check the LPG malaise

Staff Reporter

`Anomaly in rates causing huge losses to both the Government, general public'

LONG QUEUE: Consumers await their turn, as shortage of LPG cylinders have created problem for a refill as distributors fail to respond the phone calls of the subscribers, at Shivaji Enclave in West Delhi on Thursday. - Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

NEW DELHI: Contending that the widening gap between the subsidised rates for liquid petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders and the commercial LPG rates is the root cause behind large-scale black marketing of these cylinders which causes a loss of Rs.30,000 crores to the public exchequer, the All India Parallel LPG Federation has called upon Union Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer to take necessary steps to curb this drain of public money.

Stating that the organisation has over the years been repeatedly drawing the attention of the Ministry to this anomaly which has been causing huge losses to both the Government and the general public, the Federation president, Govind Poddar, lamented on Thursday that all its earlier letters, deputations and representations in this regard had been ignored.

Oil companies

But now that the Minister has at least agreed there exists a problem and a meeting of the public sector oil companies has been called on the issue, the Federation has pointed out a number of points due to which the subsidised LPG cylinders meant for the common man are not reaching him and are being sold in black in the market instead.

Diversion

The Federation has charged that the use of domestic LPG cylinders by the hotel and restaurants is taking place on a very large scale. Also, due to continuous increase in petrol prices, LPG is also finding increasing use in the private vehicles. Some of the industries like the fabrication industries also use LPG for welding on a very large scale.

The Federation has claimed that out of the 8 crore LPG connection, more than 3.5 crore connections are of non-existent consumers and this is leading to diversion on a big scale.

Another reason for increase in use of LPG, the Federation said, is the coming in of LPG geysers for heating purpose.

And the biggest indicator of the malaise, the Federation points out, is the drop in the percentage of commercial LPG sales. Despite the increase in the demand of energy by the industry, hotels and restaurants, the Federation has pointed out that the sale of commercial cylinders has dropped from around 9.2 per cent of all gas to about 4 per cent, whereas world over this figure is around 35 per cent.

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