In the face of acute shortage of cooking gas Many turn back to firewood

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jul 26: Following acute shortage of LPG in the State since the last couple of weeks, many families in Bishnupur district have been forced to turn back to firewood for cooking in place of LPG.
On the other hand, with LPG stock running out at IOCL’s Sekmai bottling plant, only 14 truck loads of packed LPG refill cylinders were released to distributors today.
The bottling plant released 20 truck loads of packed refill cylinders till Thursday.
Talking to The Sangai Express, some families of Mantak, Sagang and Kumbi, all under Bishnupur district, said that many families have switched back to firewood on account of the scarcity of LPG.
“LPG is no longer available and even if it is available, its price is exorbitant. So we have started using firewood for cooking in place of LPG”, they said.
A 14.2 Kg refill cylinder which normally costs around Rs 950 is now sold at Rs 1700 to Rs 1800 in the black market.
As such, many families cannot afford LPG and they have switched back to the traditional way of cooking food with firewood.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure healthier, cleaner and more efficient mode of cooking is no longer serving any purpose due to unavailability of refills, they said.
Subsequent upon a claim made by a key Government official that there was sufficient volume of LPG in stock, the IOCL bottling plant released 40 truck loads of packed LPG refill cylinders on Monday.
In the subsequent days, 20 truck loads were released on a daily basis. LPG refill supply from the bottling plant has been further slashed to 14 truck loads from today.
To give some time to the NHIDCL for repairing the highly dilapidated sections of Imphal-Jiribam highway, movement of empty POL and LPG TTs was suspended for three days before it was resumed on Thursday.
There was two-way movement of empty POL and LPG TTs from Imphal and loaded POL and LPG TTs from Jiribam with CRPF escorts on Thursday but the loaded POL and LPG TTs have not reached Imphal till today.
The convoy of loaded POL and LPG TTs may reach Imphal either on Saturday or Sunday.
Notably, the Consortium of Manipur Petroleum Products Transporters Fraternity  has already warned that they would cease transportation of petroleum products and LPG from August 1 if no positive response is forthcoming from the Prime Minister’s office to their representation before the deadline.