The government on Tuesday said LPG supply remained a cause for concern, but maintained that no cooking gas distributor was currently facing a dry-out situation while appealing to the public to consider alternatives such as induction stoves.

“On the issue of LPG, I would like to reiterate that the situation still remains a matter of concern. However, no LPG distributor is facing a dry-out situation at present,” Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, said at the inter-ministerial briefing on the conflict in West Asia.

According to Sharma, all refineries are operating at high capacity and LPG supplies and cylinder deliveries are continuing as usual. She, however, urged consumers to conserve energy and use LPG carefully to avoid wastage. She also appealed to people to switch to alternative fuels such as piped natural gas (PNG), electric or induction cooktops and induction stoves.

The government advised consumers to refrain from panic booking, assuring that adequate LPG stocks were being maintained for households and essential sectors.

There has been a decline in panic booking since last week, but it still continues to run into several lakhs per day. Around 70 lakh LPG bookings were recorded on Monday against 88.8 lakh on March 13.

This is the first time the government has mentioned induction cookers in its
advisory.

Earlier, the government had urged people to switch to alternatives such as kerosene and PNG.

As part of its efforts to nudge people towards PNG, the Centre had on Monday written to state governments and Union Territories requesting them to expedite approvals, issue deemed permission for pending applications to lay city gas distribution pipelines, waive road restoration and permission charges, relax working conditions and appoint nodal officers to support faster rollout. It also directed the grant of approval to new PNG applicants within 24 hours.