Blame must go to Govt, says IOCL official
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, July 19 2024: A key official of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has stated that the blame for the current acute shortage of LPG in the valley districts and certain areas of some other districts must go to the Government.

Talking with The Sangai Express, the IOCL official said that the current shortage of LPG is a result of drastic decline in the transportation of bulk LPG from outside the State.

IOCL is totally helpless on the matter.

If the State's law and order situation is good and National Highways are fit, sufficient volume of LPG would be shipped in to meet the State's requirement, the official.

As for the current acute shortage of LPG which is a direct result of the State's highly volatile law and order situation and the pathetic condition of NH-37, it is the Government's responsibility, he said.

Blame must go to Govt, says IOCL official

When bulk LPG transportation is suspended for 10 consecutive days, LPG stock at Sekmai bottling plant will get exhausted completely.

In such a situation, no one will get any LPG refill whether they are VIPs or top bureaucrats or security officers or the common people, he said.

This does not mean LPG stock at the bottling plant has exhausted completely.

After taking into consideration the volume of bulk LPG which has arrived at the plant and the volume which would be arriving soon, LPG refills are being released to distributors in limited numbers, he added.

"We are not responsible for the LPG shortage.

If the Government provides foolproof security and there is no disruption in the transportation of bulk LPG, we are always prepared to supply LPG to all the consumers", the IOCL official said.

"When the Government fails to ensure uninterrupted transportation of bulk LPG, we are totally helpless.

We are enduring the situation quite helplessly," he added.

Although the people have been facing acute scarcity of LPG and NH-37 (Imphal-Jiribam highway) has deteriorated to a pathetic level, no initiative can be seen from the Government's side to ship in petroleum and petroleum products on alternative routes.

Despite the desperate situation, there are numerous cases of many Government officials and security officers verbally asking for LPG refills from distributors, some LPG distributors told The Sangai Express.

Saying that distribution of LPG refills is done based on the blue book or the customer card and every refill issued to customers is entered in the IOCL's system, the distributors appealed to all concerned not to ask for LPG refills without the customer card or the blue book.

Meanwhile, the Bishnupur DC wrote to the CAF&PD Director and the Chief Manager (CC & LPG Sales) on Tuesday to give the required number of LPG refills to Central armed police forces deployed in Bishnupur district.