Prem Chand

April 20: Nepal Oil Corporation is currently supplying almost double the normal amount of cooking gas. Under normal circumstances, the state-owned corporation supplies up to 70 bullets of LPG per day, but now, it is supplying up to 135 bullets daily. During monitoring, it was found that the industries have also increased the production of cooking gas. However, there is still a shortage of gas in the market. Consumers have to wait for at least a week to get one cylinder of gas.

According to Netra Kafle, the head of the corporation's gas distribution department, it is now off-season in terms of gas consumption. In the past, industrialists used to place Product Delivery Order (PDO) for 70 to 80 bullets of LPG daily as gas consumption is relatively low in summer. There was a problem in gas supply when the gas industrialists did not place the PDO demanding an increase in transportation fare from last March 20. Industrialists who did not issue PDO till April 2 started placing the order from April 3.

Since then, they are placing almost twice as many PDOs as usual. According to the corporation, gas industrialists are placing 125 to 135 bullets of PDO daily. However, consumers are not getting cooking gas easily. Shraman Shrestha, who lives in Babarmahal, Kathmandu said that he brought gas from Arubari with the help of personal connections after not getting any gas for a week.

The Department of Commerce, Supply and Consumer Protection is also receiving complaints on a daily basis of gas not being available. According to Dhaneshwor Poudel, deputy information officer of the department, on an average, 2 to 3 complaints are registered in the department daily for not getting gas.

The corporation also admitted that gas is not easily available in the market. Kafle said there is a shortage of gas because industrialists and gas dealers are not accountable to the consumers. “If the businessmen had been accountable to the consumers, they would have revealed the truth.”

The industrialists also admitted that the corporation has increased gas supply but there is a shortage in the market. Krishna Bhakta Shrestha, general secretary of the LP Gas Industry Association, said that even though the gas supply is above 100 bullets daily, the supply has not eased.

“There is no shortage of gas. It's just a little less. Earlier, loading of gas was halted for 8/10 days for not being able to pay for the transportation charge. It seems like there is a shortage due to the gap. But that’s not the case.” He said that under normal circumstances, 70 to 80 bullets of gas were imported daily, but now up to 120 bullets of gas are being imported and all the imported gas is sent to the market.

However, the dealers say that the number of gas cylinders being supplied is constant and that there has not been any increase. Chandra Thapa, senior vice-president of the Gas Dealers Federation said that under normal circumstances, an average of one vehicle of gas is supplied to the dealer from one industry and it is the same at present as well.

Thapa says that there is no difference in the quantity of gas supplied to the dealers from the industry.  He said that consumers are trying to keep stocks as there are rumors of rising gas prices and rising crude oil prices in the international market.

“There is news of Nepal Oil Corporation being at loss due to LP gas. Consumers try to keep stocks due to the fear of rising prices and shortages, causing difficulty in fulfilling the demand,” he said. Consumer rights activists doubt that the industrialists are buying more gas but not supplying to the sellers in the hope that the NOC will increase the price of LP gas. Consumer rights activist Prem Lal Maharjan accused the industrialists and businessmen of hiding gas with the intention of selling it at increased prices. Maharjan said, “Industrialists and dealers are expecting the prices to go up in the international market and the domestic rates will also go up.”

The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection has stated that they have started gas-centric monitoring. Deputy Information Officer of the department Poudel said they found during monitoring on Monday that the production of Everest Gas has increased.

“Everest Gas has been producing up to 4,000 cylinders of gas per day under normal conditions, but now it is producing up to 6,000 cylinders,” he said, adding, “Since it sent the gas cylinders to the dealers, there are doubts that dealers might be hiding the gas cylinders. We are yet to monitor the dealers yet.”