It’s time we seriously considered whether LPG-based water heaters, known popularly as gas geysers should be allowed to be sold at all in the country. And if allowed, what are the mandatory precautions that need to be taken by manufacturers as well as retailers to ensure the safety of users.

In the last couple of years, sudden and tragic deaths, mostly in bathrooms, have been linked to carbon monoxide poisoning caused as a result of using these geysers in closed and unventilated bathrooms.

These gas geysers, which use Liquified Petroleum Gas for heating water have become extremely popular in recent years. But in the absence of adequate safety features in the geysers as well as lack of safety education among the users, they have also been the cause of unfortunate deaths. In fact, initially in many cases, the deaths were not even linked to the gas geysers. In Bangalore, for example, where several deaths have taken place on account of carbon monoxide poisoning, forensic experts say that in the earlier cases, the police dismissed the deaths as accidents or caused due to natural causes. However, when the number of bathroom deaths went up to eight (five women and three teenagers) in a couple of years, the investigators started looking more closely at the causes and found that all of them had certain common features. All the bathrooms were fitted with gas geysers, all the deaths had taken place in the bathroom and all the victims had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. This rang a warning bell that the cause was the gas geyser. Experts say that it is quite possible that there might be more such deaths in different parts of the country, which might not have been linked to gas geysers.

Sometime ago, a newly-wed couple on their honeymoon in Kashmir was found dead in the hotel bathroom and the initial reports had indicated the cause to be carbon monoxide poisoning. This could well be the same gas geyser.

If we had a Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as in the United States, these tragic deaths could well have been prevented. Because the CPSC investigates product related accidents or deaths and immediately orders withdrawal of products found to be hazardous, for a full refund.

In the absence of such a product safety commission here, the Union ministry of consumer affairs would be best suited to investigate into the accidents and take appropriate measures to protect the interests of consumers. It can, for a start, immediately constitute a committee of subject experts to first determine whether the product should be banned and those in use recalled for a full refund, so as to prevent further deaths.