Even before the onset of harsh winter in North, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh are facing severe shortage of LPG, forcing consumers to wait for 15-20 days for getting delivery of cooking gas.
According to KJS Bhuttar, president, LPG Distributors Federation(north-west), distributors are not getting enough LPG supplies from oil marketing companies.
There are 840 distributors of LPG in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. Shutting down of Indian Oil Corporation?s Panipat Refinery for maintenance has resulted the shortage as IOC is the main suppliers of LPG in Punjab and Haryana. The LPG shortage becomes acute with the onset of winter when generally demand picks up. Little doubt that consumers in both urban and rural areas in Punjab and Haryana were hit hard due to gap between demand and supply.
?During winters, the demand increases by over 25% but the oil companies actually reduce the supply of domestic LPG refills as they heavily on these because international prices normally peak during winter but the price of domestic LPG remains unchanged,? said Bhuttar.
The office bearers of LPG Distributors Federation told FE that it was ironic that on the one side there was shortage of domestic LPG supply but on the other side there was no dearth of LPG for commercial and bulk consumers because commercial LPG is sold at almost three times.
Punjab food and civil supplies minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon called a meeting of senior officers of IOC, Bharat Gas and Hindustan Petroleum last week. The officials reportedly assured the minister to restore normal and uninterrupted supplies soon.