SHIMLA: While the disruption in supply of LPG cylinders amid the West Asian crisis has led to shortages for commercial and industrial consumers in Himachal Pradesh, Indian Oil Corporation officials on Thursday said domestic supply was not affected.
According to officials, commercial cylinders are supplied to hospitals and educational institutions from the stock available at merchants.
“There is no shortage of domestic LPG cylinders in the state and regular supplies have been maintained. Commercial consumers are facing a shortage, but priority sectors like hospitals and educational institutions are being supplied from the stock available with traders,” said Mohammed Amed, Head of LPG Sales, Indian Oil Corporation.
When asked how long the shortage of commercial cylinders will continue, he said that the Ministry of Petroleum is holding a high-level meeting to measure the demand for commercial cylinders from various sectors to organize supply.
He added that there are about 55,000 commercial connections in the state.
He also said that supply of domestic LPG cylinders from Baddi, Una and Jalandhar bottling plants is continuing as before and all 155 distributors have sufficient stock.
“We appeal to local consumers not to go for panic booking of refills,” the official said.
Muhammad Amid said that 19 kg commercial cylinders are being supplied to hospitals and educational institutions, but the supply of 47 kg and 425 kg commercial cylinders to industry has been disrupted.
He added that due to the increasing demand from the tourism sector, distributors were asked to provide 19 kg commercial cylinders from the available stock of 12,000 cylinders.
He said hotel and restaurant owners can make house calls in their name to feed their employees.
Saber, an employee at a gas company, said that distributors are inundated with calls to reserve gas cylinders, but no commercial cylinders have been supplied during the past three days.
In view of the ongoing war in West Asia, commercial cylinder filling has stopped, a gas agency owner in Shimla told PTI.
Arun Bhatia, who has been running a restaurant in Panthagati on the outskirts of Shimla for 25 years, said the disruption of commercial cylinder supplies has led to an acute shortage, which has severely affected businesses.
He appealed to the government to achieve a balance between the supply of commercial and local cylinders.
Shyam Sharma, director of Sher Punjab Dhaba, said the situation is not good; Commercial cylinders have not been supplied during the past three days.
“Tourists are coming, and employees also need to eat, so we are facing problems. If the situation does not improve in the coming days, Dabbas will have to close,” he added.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Chief Secretary Sanjay Gupta said that Himachal Pradesh currently has sufficient stocks of petrol, diesel and domestic cooking gas and the public need not worry.
He said that about 15,000 commercial LPG cylinders are currently available in the state and are being supplied to hotels, restaurants and other institutions as needed.
Earlier, the Himachal Hotels and Restaurants Association had urged the Union government to take necessary steps to ensure adequate and uninterrupted supply of commercial LPG cylinders across the country, especially for tourist-oriented states like Himachal Pradesh.
This article was generated from an automated news feed without any modifications to the text.
