The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Cooking gas crisis shows signs of easing up in Tamil Nadu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 16, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Cooking gas crisis shows signs of easing up in Tamil Nadu

N. Ravi Kumar

Domestic cylinders still being diverted despite frequent raids, say officials

CHENNAI: The nearly three-month-long cooking gas crisis that saw consumers of the national oil companies in the State struggle with delayed supplies of refills and curbs on the release of new connections is easing up, but the days of plenty for the households may still remain a golden past.

The reasons are the unabated misuse of the subsidised domestic cylinders by roadside eateries and hotels and in automobiles, and the huge cost differential of Rs.600 that those opting for the 19-kg commercial cylinder had to bear, say oil industry sources.

From the distributors to officials of the two leading oil marketing companies — Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited — everyone admit the diversion of the domestic (14.2 kg) cylinder, priced at Rs.290 each, continued despite the frequent raids conducted by enforcement agencies.

Though the action against the offenders have resulted in some improvement, particularly with the medium-sized hotels switching over to the commercial LPG, the situation is far from satisfactory, says an IOC official. Underscoring the need for stringent punishment, as against letting off the offenders after imposing a penalty, sources in the oil companies say what is of greater concern is many consumers selling their cylinders to tea stalls and eateries.

An BPCL official says many of the tea stall and eatery owners have multiple domestic LPG connections in their name, either with different distributors or with different companies. Sources among the distributors say the root cause for the diversion is the aggressive marketing resorted to by the oil companies a couple of years ago.

Subsequent efforts to put brakes on the diversion, especially through the endorsement on ration cards about the number of connections in the households, have not yielded any result. Such a situation prevails even as IOC, has started pumping in additional supplies from in Karnataka and Andhra Pradeshto clear the backlog for refill cylinders.

Officials of the companies say the waiting period for a refill, beyond the mandatory 21 days from the date of the previous supply, has dropped to even two days in several places.

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