HYDERABAD: At 5 am every morning, owners of several shops that repair gas stoves, which sit cheek by jowl with residential areas, are busy doing a dangerous activity that can cause a calamity in these areas. They transfer liquified petroleum gas, or LPG, from the regular sized cylinders supplied to homes to small ones of 2-5 kg size.
These shops are usually cluttered with spares of gas stoves and empty cylinders. If you visit them early in the morning, you can smell the thin scent of LPG leaking, even as owners or workers sit with shutters pulled halfway down trying to refill gas. The refilling is done using a normal 14kg pump that is used to supply water. The pump is connected to regular sized cylinders using a poor quality connector.
The motor is on the other end that is connected to the smaller cylinder. The entire filling and refilling is done so haphazardly that it’s a disaster waiting to happen -- not just gas leak but also the likelihood of cylinder/gas explosion. The large cylinders for the job are bought by the refilling shops from gas agencies, who are paid a handsome commission for it.
Shops conducting this illegal activity, amidst thickly populated residential and commercial areas, are akin to ticking time bombs. However, no strict action is being taken by government authorities to curb this menace that is widespread in the city. Denizens allege that police have failed to control this illegal activity despite many complaints.
A Srinivas, a resident of Uday Nagar in Banjara Hills who resides next to one such illegal gas refilling centre said, “A lot of us residents complained several times to the police, but to no avail. In fact the business has mushroomed. A few years ago, only there was only one such shop. Now, looking at the money he’s making, several others have come up.”
When contacted, West Zone DCP A R Srinivas admitted that such a problem exists. He said that the police is regularly conducting cordon and search operations as part of which it has identified such illegal cylinder refilling centres and booked cases against them under the Essential Commodities Act.