The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Raid unearths illegal gas station

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 11, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Raid unearths illegal gas station

G. Anand

Cooking gas was supplied as fuel to motorists here

Photo: S. Gopakumar

Game is up: LPG cylinders being removed from an illegal gas filling station near Kunnukuzhy.

Thiruvananthapuram: A team led by District Supply Officer K. Radhakrishnan and Hindustan Petroleum Deputy Manager (Sales) U. Rajan raided a house, in which an illegal liquid petroleum gas filling station was functioning, at Vikas Lane near Kunnukuzhy.

Eight cooking gas cylinders marked for domestic consumption were confiscated in the raid conducted on the house of late Helena Davis.

The racketeers sold subsidised cooking gas as fuel to motorists.

They used a motorised pump with a specialised nozzle to inject cooking gas into the reservoirs of vehicles modified to run on LPG. The officials also found a weighing scale used by the racketeers to determine the amount of gas they retailed.

Helena’s husband George and their two sons live in the house. The residence is tucked away in a wooded plot at the end of a steep driveway that ascends from the Vikas Lane road. It is difficult to sight the house from the road. Near the house is a workshop which modifies vehicles to run on LPG. The workshop owner will also be investigated, an official said.

A safety hazard

He pointed out that the illegal gas filling station posed a fire safety hazard to the entire neighbourhood. The inspectors confiscated an LPG-fitted van which was parked in front of the house.

Mr. Radakrishnan said one Gopakumar, who works for Mr. George, has owned up the crime. However, officials are not taking his statement at face value.

They suspect him to be a front man for the behind-the-scene racketeers.

Errant distributors

Officials suspect that the cooking gas cylinders were sourced from some errant LPG distributors in the district. Intelligence collected by Mr. Rajan resulted in the raid.

The police will investigate the case registered under the Essential Commodities Act and the Liquid Petroleum Gas (Regulation, Supply and Distribution) rules 2000.

District Collector Sanjay Kaul told The Hindu that stringent action would be taken against those who sell cooking gas meant for domestic consumption in black market.

The district administration will randomly inspect the premises of distributors, verify their stock, act immediately on complaints from consumers and collect intelligence on black marketers.

Ways to divert

Official sources said black marketers used a well entrenched network of middlemen to source LPG cylinders from domestic consumers who depended more on firewood and kerosene. They paid consumers up to Rs.500 for a domestic LPG cylinder weighing 14.2 kg and costing Rs.353.

Using a tiny apparatus, the black marketers transferred the subsidised gas into cylinders meant for commercial sale. (An LPG cylinder marked for commercial consumption weighs 19 kg and is priced at Rs.1,180.) Commercial cylinders filled with subsidised gas are sold to hotels and restaurants for Rs.900 or less.

This new method of operation has made it difficult for government enforcers to detect the illegal diversion of domestic LPG cylinders.

For sometime now, petroleum companies have been asking distributors to deliver LPG cylinders to the houses of domestic consumers to check illegal diversion. The companies also asked distributors to enter the sale of cooking gas cylinders in the ration cards of consumers.

Joint Transport Commissioner A.G. Ananthakrishnan said checking of vehicles would be intensified to prosecute motorists who use liquefied petroleum as fuel without sanction.

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

Kerala

News Update

Stories in this Section