LPG crisis may continue

KOCHI: The LPG crisis is likely to continue for the next couple of a days, even after the LPG tanker lorry transport owners’ association strike has been resolved. Though the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) officials say that it would take only two days for resumption of distribution, sources in the Corporation say that it will take at least a week for total stability.“It will just take two days to resume normal bottling. There are no problems and things are very comfortable,” a senior official said. The bullet tankers have started coming to the plant and normal bottling has started, he said. Even though the strike was called last week, we had stock for three to four days and had no problem, he added.However, the employees at the plant say that it would take another week for complete stabilisation of the distribution. “The first batch of lorries with cylinders will leave the Udayamperur plant only by tomorrow,” they said.As there is a limited quota of loads from the Kochi refinery, the major dependency is from Mangalore. “The bullet tankers from Mangalore will take a day to get here and as such there can be some delay,” they said and added that the crisis can be tackled only by running the plant round the clock for a few days.When contacted, some of the gas agencies said that there is no shortage. “Enough are stored and there is nothing to fear. Since, the lorry owners’ strike is over, there will not be any issues in the coming days,” they said. The IOC’s Kochi plant is the largest in the state, in terms of capacity and turns out 140 truck  loads (306 cylinders in a load) of  cylinders a day.