Piped cooking gas users feel heat of LPG crisis, scramble to stock up

Residents of gated communities and high rise apartment complexes in and around Hyderabad relying solely on piped LPG supplies have started feeling the heat of the ongoing cooking gas crisis.

Residents of gated communities and high rise apartment complexes in and around Hyderabad relying solely on piped LPG supplies have started feeling the heat of the ongoing cooking gas crisis.

Most resident associations are scrambling to replenish the refill stocks or the cylinder banks, in the communities and complexes, from where LPG is supplied over pipelines to hundreds, and in many cases, thousands of households.

What began as a stock-taking exercise when the initial signs of strain in nationwide LPG supplies surfaced has given way to huddles in which resident welfare office-bearers and managers discuss the challenge at hand. In some cases, they are in regular touch with the distributors concerned, enquiring about the next cooking gas supply.

Reports of frayed tempers and complaints against the distributors are on the rise. In a gated community in L.B.Nagar with more than 750 apartments — one third of them rely on piped gas — some residents accused the cooking gas distributor, of one of the three public sector oil companies, of refusing to supply citing the shortage and demanding a premium.

A few gated communities, however, seem to have managed the situation by anticipating and stocking up the refills after the war in West Asia began on February 28 and the subsequent directive India issued to its refiners to ramp up LPG production to maintain domestic supplies and curb supplies to other user segments such as commercial establishments and industries.

Amid the emerging situation, residents of gated communities who never gave up their individual cylinder connection, on account of the piped supplies, are patting themselves even as LPG distributors report a surge in the refill bookings by households.