A grab from the Telegraph report on unauthorised gas dealers

June 18: If you were one of those who found it convenient to buy your cooking gas at a premium from the neighbourhood paan shop instead of visiting an authorised dealer, it is time to go “legal” again.

The Dibrugarh district administration has begun a crackdown on the illegal sale of LPG cylinders throughout the district on the basis of a report in The Telegraph.

Deputy commissioner Ashutosh Agnihotri has ordered confiscation of LPG cylinders stocked illegally and penal action against all the shops involved.

A team led by additional deputy commissioner P. Ashok Babu raided shops at various locations on Saturday and seized 11 LPG cylinders. Even jewellery shops were found to be involved in the racket.

Officials of the food and civil supplies department, including deputy director (in-charge) B.C. Handique and inspector J.M. Mahanta, were in the raid party.

Mahanta said legal action would be initiated against the offenders.

The raids were conducted in accordance with the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order, 2000.

“Commercial use of LPG cylinders meant for domestic consumers is a non-bailable offence under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, and offenders may face a jail term of up to a year along with a fine,” Mahanta said.

The June 14 edition of The Telegraph had revealed how a section of unscrupulous gas agencies, hawkers and government officials were making a mockery of the government’s efforts to ensure subsidised cooking gas for the masses by selling cylinders at exorbitant prices. Only a few metres from the Dibrugarh deputy commissioner’s office in Milan Nagar, gas cylinders are “illegally” sold at almost every paan shop .

The legitimate price of a cylinder is Rs 285, but people purchase it from the roadside shops for anything between Rs 330 and Rs 350.

Some of the agencies also sell these subsidised cooking gas cylinders to hotels and restaurants at prices as high as Rs 400.

“If a hotel or restaurant or the hundreds of dhabas, which are mushrooming these days almost every few metres along the national highways, has to obtain a connection for steady supply of gas, they have to pay commercial rates. This is why owners of hotels or restaurants prefer to purchase LPG cylinders by shelling out up to Rs 400,” a source had said.

“Unfortunately, there is no monitoring by the administration on this aspect in Dibrugarh,” he added.