Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

LPG shortage affects consumers

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: Domestic consumers of LPG in the State have been hit hard by an acute shortage in the supply of LPG by oil companies. With most consumers being forced to wait for 45 days or more to get a refilled cylinder, unruly scenes between irate consumers and LPG distributors have become a regular affair.

The booking backlog has been accumulating since Onam, precipitating the crisis situation now.

The situation has affected the consumers of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) more as 75 per cent of the LPG domestic market is controlled by IOC. Distributors claim that there has been supply problems ever since the oil companies began implementing their policy of `regulated supplies,' by cutting down the LPG quota to distributors by almost 50 per cent. Distributors point out that the oil companies have adopted a `covert' policy of reducing domestic LPG sales to counter the loss incurred by them due to the Government subsidy on domestic LPG cylinders.

"It is a fact that oil companies have to bear a loss of Rs.160 to 180 for every domestic LPG cylinder they sell. Hence they have sought to make up for their losses by reducing the sale of domestic cylinders. If there is a supply shortage as they claim, how is it that the sales of commercial LPG cylinders and auto LPG are soaring?" an Indane distributor asked. Instead of declaring openly their policy of regulating domestic LPG sales or taking up the issue with the Government, oil companies are making scapegoats out of distributors, the general secretary of Indane Distributors' Forum, Babu Verghese said.

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