Chandigarh, September 18
Cooking gas consumers are in for trying times ahead, with the LPG dealers threatening to stop home delivery of cooking gas cylinders from Thursday.

Refusing to take responsibility for ensuring that only six subsidised cylinders are delivered to each consumer, and in case of default, take the financial burden of delivering more than prescribed limit of subsidised LPG, the dealers are demanding a one-price mechanism for LPG distribution.

LPG distributors in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana rue that they were being made scapegoats by being held responsible for the delivery of six subsidised cylinders. The dealers said they will stop home delivery of cylinders from September 20.

The consumers, they said, could take the cylinders from their go-downs, and they would provide consumers a cash-and- carry rebate. The dealers are also demanding that the government should give direct subsidy to the consumers, by transferring the subsidy amount directly in the bank accounts of consumers. They want that LPG should be sold at a single price, rather than having a dual pricing mechanism for cooking gas. Since the dealers are already fulfilling the KYC (Know Your Customer) norms for all LPG consumers, and thus gathering details of their bank accounts, the subsidy amount could be transferred to their accounts.

Last week, burdened with an under recovery of Rs 30,000 crore on LPG distribution, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had capped the number of subsidised cylinders to be distributed to a consumer at six, saying that any additional cylinders required by the consumer should be bought at the market price.

However, the government has so far not notified the rate at which the unsubsidised cylinders will be sold. The ministry has also initiated a move to disconnect any multiple connections that consumer(s) may have under its “one household one cylinder” programme.

Talking to The Tribune, Capt K J S Buttar, president of National Federation of LPG Distributors of India, said though the government had initiated the move to cut the burgeoning under recovery by oil marketing companies (OMCs), it had failed to evolve a mechanism to check that only six subsidised cylinders were delivered to a consumer.

“We rely on middlemen for deliveries, who in turn deliver the cylinder to consumers, often without getting any signatures from them. The staff is also known to deliver the cylinders at will, and assign the delivery to a particular consumer.

In such cases, the LPG dealers as well as consumers will face a lot of problems because of lack of a fool-proof mechanism. Thus, dealers in north India have decided not to give any home deliveries till the time this matter is sorted out,” he said.

The dealers are in a fix over distributing cylinders to bulk consumers like hospitals, religious institutions and hostels. “There is no clarity on whether bulk consumers will also get just six subsidised LPG cylinders. The oil companies are asking us to continue delivering the cylinders to these consumers at the old rate (subsidised rate of Rs 407.50 for 14. 2 kg cylinder and Rs 1,463 for 19 kg cylinder), after taking an undertaking from these consumers that they will pay the enhanced rate of LPG, once it is decided by the government. So, while we as dealers will have to pay the enhanced rate on these cylinders, recovery of the enhanced amount from consumers will be our responsibility,” complained Satinder Singh, an LPG dealer from Hisar.

The dealers are also demanding that the commission being paid to them by the oil companies should be increased from the present Rs 25.83 per cylinder (domestic gas cylinder) and Rs 65 for commercial cylinder. Ravjot Singh, an LPG dealer at Khanna, said their commission should be fixed. It should be minimum 15 per cent of MRP of cylinders, he said.