Barely two months after former petroleum minister Murli Deora claimed that there was an “increase in the pace of regular release of new LPG connections in the country”, things have gone the other way: new LPG connections are not being given.
Barely two months after former petroleum minister Murli Deora claimed that there was an “increase in the pace of regular release of new LPG connections in the country”, things have gone the other way: new LPG connections are not being given.
Telephone calls made to 25 LPG dealers in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka seeking a new connection received the same reply: Sorry, no connections are available — especially from dealers and distributors of Bharat Petroleum, which markets LPG under the brand name BharatGas.
“The company has asked us not to provide new connections,” said an executive from a BharatGas distributor at Andheri West, ironically named as Quick Gas Service. Reiterating the same, Mohan Gas Service from Tilak Nagar, Chembur, yet another BharatGas agent, said, “Connections have been stopped for the last two months and we are not providing any new connections either. Try your luck next month-end.”
An official in BharatGas’ western region territory said there is currently a constraint in Mumbai because the loaders at the refinery are under a ‘go slow’. “They are demanding an exorbitant hike in wages and we are considering taking them to court,” he said, assuring that the situation is temporary.
S Radhakrishnan, director — marketing, BPCL, said the unavailability is temporary and there is no major hiccup anywhere in the country on the supply side. “Though I don’t have the numbers off hand, but at most, the backlog could not be more that 15 to 20 days and the situation will ease in a fortnight,” he had told DNA last month.
He assured that no such directions have been given to dealers to stop providing new connections, although the companies are now focusing more on expanding their rural network, but not at the cost of urban populace.
The ground reality, however, is new connections haven’t been available since October last and there is no likelihood of the situation improving till the end of February.
A BharatGas dealer, Abhi Gas from Surat, said that the company is not supplying bottles since Diwali, so, while applications for new connections are piling up, there is no hope in sight for clearing the huge backlog in the next two months.
The story reads the same elsewhere. “We have been trying to source an LPG connection from IndianOil and Hindustan Petroleum, but were told that there is a waiting of two months. So, we opted for Super Gas - a private player, albeit at a higher price,” said an ex-BPCL employee, who recently shifted to Hyderabad.
Super Gas is a Hyderabad-based LPG company which primarily supplies gas for industrial use, but also has a business division for domestic gas.
A senior marketing executive from Super Gas told DNA: “There has been some demand for LPG from domestic customers, but that is not our core business, as we sell it at market-linked price.”
Currently, a 12-kg cylinder for domestic use is sold at an average price of price of Rs750, while a standard 14.2 kg LPG cylinder is sold by oil marketing companies at an average price of Rs350.
The government oil companies take a loss of over Rs210 per cylinder. This is one of the reasons why the companies are discouraging new LPG connections, it seems. Says the former BPCL employee, “During review meetings, we were categorically told not to exceed the sale of LPG connections beyond the historical sales figure, and instead, we were asked to promote sale of value-added utility products, such as pipes, stoves, ovens, etc.” This was to keep the under-recovery burden from LPG at previous levels.
And not just new connections, transfer of old connection to another city is also a problem. “I had to eventually call up a director in one of the LPG companies to get my connection,” said a private-sector executive, who shifted from Mumbai to Bangalore. Repeated calls to IndianOil’s marketing team and LPG team in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune yielded no results. The case was the same with HPCL too.”
Five HPCL dealers DNA spoke to said the company has stopped supplying regulators so that no new connections could be given. “We have written to the company several times but to no avail. The situation is not changing since the last one month, and there is no response from the company either,” said an HP Gas dealer.
A befuddling side to this is, at IndianOil’s dealerships in Navi Mumbai, connections are promised within a day of application.
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