Acute shortage of subsidised cooking gas has adversely affected daily life of an estimated eight-lakh household in South Kerala alone in the past fortnight.
The deadlock over freight rates between public sector oil companies and transporters contracted to move LPG cylinders from “bottling plants” to agencies caused the artificial scarcity, according to government officials seized of the situation.
The supply of cylinders to any single distributor has dwindled from an average of 8,000 a fortnight to less than 1,000. Backlog of orders at most agencies have mounted, in one case more than 12,000 since February 20. LPG distributors said that even if steady supply resumed on Monday, it would take them at least a month to clear the pile-up of bookings.
These days, telephones ring incessantly at gas agencies. Agencies handle more than 400 calls a day from worried consumers and tempers often fray.
Consumers suspect that agencies show favouritism in allotment of cylinders and resort to hoarding for black market sales.
Dealers said that cylinders were allotted solely on the merit of seniority in booking and exceptions were made only in the case of critically-ill persons.
The gas shortage has hit Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, and Alappuzha worst. The situation is the same, though in a lesser degree, in north districts. The region’s proximity to the LPG import terminal in Mangalapuram has helped.
Four transporters had won the previous three-year contract, which expired on April 1, by quoting an “unreasonably” low rate to oust other bidders.
Soon, they ran into loss and defaulted on the payment of diesel bills and salaries of truck crew. Unavailability of fuel and labour unrest commonly resulted in disruption of LPG supply.
This year, the same group, which owns the biggest fleet of trucks, quoted high and, consequently, lost the contract.
A paradoxical situation emerged when it turned out that the lowest bidder who won the contract did not have the required number of trucks to put LPG supply back on track.
Officials said backdoor negotiations were on with the powerful transporters to resolve the issue. The government feared that it would have to face public ire if the impasse was not resolved at the earliest, they said.
