SHILLONG, Aug 18: A section of the gas agencies and distributors including Meghalaya State Cooperative Marketing and Consumers’ Federation Limited (MeCOFED) has reported shortage of supply of LPG cylinders which has caused great inconvenience to the customers.
The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) however denied any shortage in the supply of the LPG cylinders and claimed that the various distributors and agencies are getting their load of cylinders on a daily basis.
Speaking to The Shillong Times here on Thursday, an official of MECOFED said they are facing shortage in the stock of LPG cylinders since they are not getting their load from IOC regularly.
According to the official, they had raised this issue with the field officer of the IOC to send the load as there is backlog for the past two months.
Informing that they have received their loads of LPG after Independence Day, he said that the stock is not enough.
“We normally deliver around 600 cylinders on a daily basis. But now we are able to deliver around 300 cylinders. Therefore, we are now getting complaints from the consumers for not being able to deliver the cooking gas on time,” the official said.
He said that more than 50% of the trucks which go for a door to door delivery of LPG to the customer are sitting idle.
“This affects us financially since we need to pay their salaries. If there is a shortage in our load then the roster system is badly affected,” the official added.
Echoing similar concerns, other agencies also said there is irregularity in the supply of the LPG by the IOC which has affected their stock.
According to them, the supply is coming and it has not totally stopped. “But there is a shortage. There are days when we are not able to send our vehicles since we do not have LPG cylinders in our stock,” they observed.
It is observed that the irregular supply was also a result of the holidays.
“We expect the supply to improve in the coming week,” they stated.
Meanwhile, an IOC official denied that there is any shortage. According to him, the MECOFED has already received two loads in the past two days.
“We are monitoring the number of deliveries and the number of cylinders received by each distributor on a daily basis. I don’t think there is any such shortage,” he said.
Stating that the deliveries are happening every day, the IOC official said that no distributors are sitting idle.
Meanwhile, he observed that if the distributor himself is having some problems like funds constraints or if there is any internal problem then there might be a problem in terms of receiving the load.
“If there is a shortage then people will not get their LPG cylinders even after do the booking. As compared to last year, we are delivering more LPG cylinders this year. We are not facing any problem despite the increase in demand,” IOC official added.
Meanwhile the residents of Nongrim Hills and other areas served by the MECOFED have been complaining that they have not received the LPG cylinders for the past two months. It is learnt that the LPG consumers of Nongrim Hills have lodged a complaint with the East Khasi Hills deputy commissioner in this regard.
