BHOPAL: With the domestic LPG cylinder costing Rs 900 per cylinder, people wish they had an alternative fuel or could use electric tools to keep the impact of increasing LPG prices on their pockets under control but they have none.
"When the domestic LPG cylinder prices had touched Rs 800 per cylinder, who had started using induction plates wherever we could for cooking but electricity is no cheaper either. Our electricity bill shot up to Rs 900 that month. In fact, poor or rich or middle class, if you are living in an urban area, you have no alternative fuel available", said B R Yadav, a government servant.
What Yadav said was endorsed by Savitri, a domestic help, when she said "We had received free LPG connection under Ujjawala scheme but with the prices of LPG cylinder going up constantly, we decided to look out for kerosene or coal, which we earlier used for cooking, but they are not easily available now. You don't get kerosene at the fair price shop either", she said.
Deepak Saxena, manager at a gas agency, said " We have a definite feeling that LPG prices are being raised to fund the Ujjawala scheme under which free gas connection is being given to poor families. They may take the connection but many of them fail to replace the cylinder, when the cylinder they get with the free connection, gets exhausted and they either put it in a corner in their house or sell it to a shopkeeper."
Though there is also a provision of small cylinder to enable families who are not able to spend Rs 900 to get the 14.2 Kg standard domestic LPG cylinder but Satish, who often gets it filled, said that shops where they get the small cylinder filled charge them extra bucks to fill 2 Kg or 5 Kg of LPG in the cylinder.
Saxcena said that shops in Jawahar Chowk or Kamla Nagar do this "risky" job, which is illegal also. "There should be action against them but they are doing it blatantly from their shops. We also give a 5 Kg cylinder but for that, one has to get a seperate connection by paying something around Rs 1800. But, nobody takes it because they get 2 Kg or 5 Kg LPG filled from those shops", said Saxena.
He further said that customer are already irate over constantly rising prices of LPG and since the prices are now being raised randomly on any date rather than on the first day of the month as was the established norms, customers often end up arguing with the gas agency managers on why should they pay extra money when they had booked the cylinder earlier, when the price was less.
