ROURKELA: Taking advantage of the cooking gas crisis caused by the ongoing West Asia conflict, black marketeers are selling domestic LPG cylinders at prices ranging from Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,500 across Rourkela city and the rest of Sundargarh district.
The black marketing is being reportedly carried out by unscrupulous individuals with a section of domestic LPG consumers and beneficiaries of PM Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) being their collusive partners.
Sources said amid the disruption in cooking gas supplies, a handful of unscrupulous individuals are procuring domestic LPG cylinders and selling those at exorbitant prices to commercial users. These are also used for refilling small cylinders. Associated with the public distribution system (PDS) over a long period of time, the black marketeers have reportedly weaved a well-knit system involving dishonest PMUY beneficiaries and other LPG consumers.
A domestic consumer is entitled to a maximum of 12 cylinders in a year. But the actual need of many families remains four to six cylinders. Sources said a section of dishonest LPG consumers avail the maximum limit with the intention of supplying the extra cylinders to the black marketeers. Earlier when the LPG supply was normal, these consumers used to charge an extra Rs 200 to Rs 300 per cylinder. But now, they are demanding Rs 700 to Rs 1,000 more depending on demand. The black markeeters, basically middlemen, take the rest of the money after selling each cylinder for Rs 1,800-Rs 2,500.
A 14-kg domestic LPG cylinder costs Rs 972 while a commercial one of 19 kgs is priced at Rs 2,264 for plain variant and Rs 2,286 for Xtra Tej. The PMUY beneficiary is charged Rs 972 for domestic cylinder but gets Rs 332 subsidy in the direct benefit transfer (DBT) mode.
Amid restriction on supply of LPG for business purposes, commercial users including hotels, restaurants and food manufacturers don’t mind paying extra bucks to help survive their business and in turn, pass the cost to food customers. Requesting anonymity, a social worker of Rourkela said he had to procure a domestic LPG cylinder for Rs 1,800 for preparation of ‘prasad’ on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti.
The district has around 4.13 lakh domestic LPG consumers, 1.97 lakh PMUY connections and 45 distributors. Stephen Soreng, manager of Indane gas agency at Sundargarh town, said his customer base remains the same and supply is also normal. However, panic booking is creating extra supply pressure. Acting on the direction of the district collector, both commercial and domestic LPG cylinders are being supplied to government institutions including hospitals, jails, schools and others, he added.
Chief civil supplies officer (CCSO) of Sundargarh Ajay Rath said the average daily requirement of the district is about 7,000 LPG cylinders. The district normally maintains daily stock of 10,000 cylinders along with around 2,000 in-transit cylinders which is enough to last for nearly two days.
Regarding black marketing of LPG cylinders, the CCSO said there was no specific information and regular checks are being carried out to curb the illegal practice.