LOKMAT NEWS NETWORK
Nashik, Mar 22
The prices of domestic LPG cylinders, which are used for cooking, have reached Rs 850 to Rs 900, as they are being widely used by hoteliers and for auto-rickshaws and vehicles running on gas. If gas cylinders are used only for domestic consumption, the rates will be reduced by more than half, claimed the Grahak Dakshata Kalyan Foundation, an organisation working for consumers’ benefit. For this, the organisation has demanded that the government issue instructions to the companies distributing cylinders to implement biometric and barcode systems.
Nitin Solanke, Krushna Pawar, Rohit Pawar, and Prashant Jamgade informed about the distribution of gas cylinders under the Domestic Gas Cylinder Vigilance Awareness Campaign. Nitin Solanke said, 75 percent of the country's citizens cook on gas, while 20 percent cook on stoves. Only five percent of people use electric induction stoves. Gas is a viable alternative to stop the use of stoves, and its cost is easily within the reach of common people. Gas cylinder distribution companies openly provide domestic gas for commercial use. LPG cylinders for domestic use are used daily by hundreds of hotels, rickshaws, and gas-driven vehicles from Nashik city. The government is losing Rs 5 to 6 crore GST from it. Solanke said that this figure is for Nashik city alone, and this is a scam of crores of rupees across the country. Gas distribution companies sell domestic LPG cylinders very easily to professionals. If a person is allotted a quota of 12 cylinders a year and uses only five to seven cylinders, the remaining quota is sold off by the distributor. As this sale is set through software, customers did not notice this matter.