Angry protests over LPG scarcity
New Delhi   12-Nov-2010

The city and other smaller towns in the district are facing an acute shortage of cooking gas as well as drinking water. There are 21 cooking gas agencies in the city catering to over two lakh consumers. However, with the onset of winter, the waiting period for a cylinder has gone up to three weeks.

Harried housewives staged angry demonstrations at several places in the district yesterday. In Hisar, LPG consumers, mostly women, blocked traffic on the Suryanagar main road to protest against the acute paucity of cooking gas. They argued with officials and policemen as they tried to clear the blockade.

The consumers alleged they had not been receiving supplies for a month. Alleging that the cooking gas agencies were selling cylinders on the black market, they sought action against the owners. Angry protesters detained a truck carrying LPG cylinders near Vidyut Nagar and deflated its tyres. The driver and cleaner of the truck fled, abandoning the loaded truck to escape the wrath of the consumers.

Gas agency owners said they were not being given adequate supplies by the oil companies.

They said each agency needed about 10,000 cylinders a day, but the companies were supplying only half that number.

A spokesperson for the IOC said there was no shortage of cylinders and supplies could not be made for three days last week because of Divali holidays. Meanwhile, residential sectors developed by HUDA here are facing an acute shortage of drinking water for the past three weeks as the reservoirs had been emptied for cleaning. As a result, the supply has been cut down to once a day. On many days no water is supplied. Officials said they had started filling up the reservoirs and the supply would be normal by tomorrow morning.