No refills if you have multiple gas connections

BPCL, HPCL and Indane furnished a list of consumers with more than one cylinders

If you are one of those LPG customers, ‘enjoying’ the facility of more than one gas connection, here is some serious trouble coming your way.

The oil marketing companies (OMCs) - Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Indane - have come together to weed out multiple gas connections.

A sub-divisional manager of BPCL, Bangalore, told Deccan Herald that the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, during its drive to weed out illegal connections unearthed four lakh cases of multiple LPG connections in the State. Multiple connections are illegal under Liquified Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order, 2000.

The official said the oil marketing companies have secured a list of such consumers from the Department and were in the process of comparing it with their database. Advertisements had been issued in newspapers calling upon consumers to surrender the additional connections.

“The supply will be stopped if they do not abide, and will resume only after the extra connections are surrendered,” he said.

A senior official from Food and Civil Supplies Department confirmed that a list consumers with multiple connections with identical RR numbers (of electrical installations) had been furnished to the oil marketing companies.  He said the Department has found over 9.12 lakh cases wherein multiple LPG connections have been taken under single a RR number and Bangalore City tops in the list. The Department has already cancelled more than 16.7 lakh illegal LPG connections since the consumers did not furnish RR number.

The rule book

According to Liquified Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order, 2000 a person having a connection for LPG under the public distribution system, shall not:
* possess more than one connection of LPG granted under the public distribution system;
* possess or use liquefied petroleum gas filled in cylinder or in bulk, unless he has received the supply from a Government oil company or a distributor authorised by such company;
*  use liquefied petroleum gas for any purpose other than for which the consumer is registered with the distributor of a Government Oil Company.