Cooking woes to ease

KOCHI: The LPG cylinder shortage in the city will be sorted out in a month, said District Collector P I Sheik Pareeth here on Tuesday. He was speaking after analysing the LPG cylinder distribution in the city at a meeting attended by representatives of gas cylinder distribution agencies.The issues faced by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in the distribution of cylinders since last January are being solved step by step. The delay in procuring an LPG cylinder after booking can be solved if an additional 10 loads of cylinders are supplied in the city everyday. Presently, the city gets 60 loads of cylinders daily, wherein each load contains 60 cylinders.  The collector further instructed the District Supply Officer to write a letter to the IOC officials seeking the distribution of the additional loads as per requirement. Though the users of LPG cylinders of Bharat Petroleum and Hindusthan Petroleum get their cylinders on time, the users of IOC-owned Indane Gas face too many delays in procuring an LPG cylinder. “In areas where such a delay is seen, the consumers are free to change their subscription to another LPG supplier by procuring a termination order from the present agency and submitting an application to the required agency. The connection can be changed within two days,” he said. IOC officials said that the consumers who had acquired a connection from Sharon agency in Kakkanad could procure their cylinders from the agency in Tripunithura.At present, there is a 45-day delay in getting an Indane LPG cylinder. However, the users of  LPG cylinders supplied by HP and BPCL get their cylinders within 30 days and 2 days respectively. The representatives of Indane distributors noted that the frequent issues in loading, unloading and transportation of cylinders at the IOC bottling plant have led to the delay in distribution. They demanded that the government proclaim LPG cylinder transportation as an ‘essential service’.