LPG and transportation charge : Short changing consumers
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 25, 2012 -

Filled LPG cylinders being sold in the black market :: Pix - TSE

There are reasons why consumers suffer. And more often than not consumers are made to suffer.

This pre-supposes certain lacunae in the delivery system of either goods or services and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the controlled items, when the Government steps in under the principle of a welfare state to ensure that all the people have access to certain basic amenities at highly subsidised rates.

This attracts the sharks who may come under different avatars but all driven by the same motive-maximise profit at the cost of the consumers.

Liquified Petroleum Gas or simply cooking gas is one such item which has attracted the fuel sharks and the manner in which the interests of consumers have been short changed in Manipur points to the existence of an institutionalised channel which would not have been possible without 'official' patronage.

So while a whole lot of hue and cry has been raised against the decision of the UPA Government to hike the price of petrol by Rs 7.50 per litre, gas consumers in Manipur have been bearing the transportation cost of LPG which has been fixed at Rs 8 per filled cylinder.

There is no home delivery system in Manipur but gas agencies continue to impose the transportation cost of Rs 8 per filled cylinder on the consumers without much ado.

An intelligent procedure manufactured by the fertile minds of the agencies without making the consumers feel the pinch of being cheated, is what best describes the situation.

To the agencies the consumers may just be mere statistics but to the Government the consumers should count as human beings, citizens of the land, whose rights should not be violated at any cost. Why should consumers be made to pay for the transportation charge when there is no such system as home delivery here ?

Apart from this, a look at the daily delivery notice issued by the gas agencies should be more than enough indication that a household is expected to rely on a filled cylinder for two or three months.

A case of shortage or a case of swindling and manipulating the record books of the receipt and delivery of the controlled item ?

A look at the booming black market of LPG is more than indicative that it is more a case of engineering the supply chain than shortage.

A clear case of the consumers made to suffer due to the clever machination of an institutionalised channel to line the pockets of the influential and the powerful at the cost of the consumers.

A business venture rests on the principle of profit but when the profit cut is made fatter by cheating the consumers then it is time to draw the line. An indifferent consumer has only made things easier for such a culture to flourish and bloom.

Whether it is LPG or any other item, controlled or otherwise, the consumer has always been short changed, twisting the understanding of 'the customer is always right' philosophy beyond recognition.

An irony, in a sense, given the fact that it does not take much for the people as a whole to form a JAC and impose a Statewide bandh on any issue.

Time to poke the consumers where it matters and push the Government into doing something concrete. Maximising profit and cheating the consumers are not the same thing.

This should be the defining line.