Dispute over unloading, loading of cylinders hits Indane supplies
Chennai   25-Oct-2010

Supply of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinders in Chennai and its suburbs by Indane distributors, particularly those attached to the Ennore bottling plant of IndianOil, is taking longer than usual time.

The backlog of refill bookings to be cleared by the distributors is heavy, at a time of the year when demand for cylinder is relatively high. Sources among distributors said refill bookings made more than 10 days ago are yet to be cleared, whereas a month ago the distributors supplied within four days of the booking.

A meeting of the Indane Distributors' Association, Chennai Area, was held on Saturday to discuss the “delay in supply of cylinders to the customers.”

A press release on Sunday from the Association president A. Ramachandran said: “The Association felt that this delay is due to the breach of contract by the transport contractors from Ennore bottling plant appointed by IOC.”

He said the transporters were refusing to unload the filled cylinders and load the empties from the distributors' godown. They want the distributors to make their own arrangements for this.

“We request the IOC to ensure delivery of cylinders by the transport contractors to the distributors' premises as per the contract terms. This will enable the distributors to reduce the delay in supply to the customers,” he said.

Speaking to The Hindu, he said while some distributors have managed to arrange manpower for unloading and loading the cylinders at the godown, there are some who were not able to do so and hence they went without loads in the past few days.

There are nearly 120 Indane distributors catering to localities in and around Chennai. Around 60 distributors draw their supplies from the Ennore bottling plant, while the remaining gets the cylinders from the IOTL plant in suburban Manali. Distributors attached to the Manali plant also complained of a similar problem recently.

Additional workload

If the delivery boys were involved in unloading the cylinders from the lorries the additional workload would reflect on supplies to the household, he said.

Senior officials of the LPG department of IOC in Chennai said a final solution concerning the unloading and loading of the cylinders at the distributors' godown by the transporters would be arrived at in a few days.

The Tiruvallur district administration had a meeting with the transporters on Friday, in which they agreed to adhere to the contract norms.

Noting that there was stoppage for one or two days recently in Ennore, an official said on Saturday and Sunday the plant worked, which would not have been possible if the trucks did not supply the filled cylinder and bring back empty cylinders. On Sunday, the IOTL and Chengalpattu bottling plants also worked, he added.

An official added that the third carousel of the Ennore bottling plant is to be commissioned on Monday.

The filling equipment established at a cost of Rs.10 crore, would help increase the number of loads from the existing 105 a day to around 130 in the short term. It would be further enhanced.