Staff Correspondent
Port Blair, Apr 10: Following recent media reports about suffering of General Public at LPG Booking counter of CCS Ltd., the Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lt. Gen (Retd.) Bhopinder Singh had directed the Civil Supplies Department to streamline the system of booking of LPG cylinders to avoid people standing in long queues.
The department was asked to issue a press release to inform the general public for facilitating booking on telephone of the LPG cylinders by the two distributors concerned in South Andaman District initially from 9 AM to 2 PM and from 2 PM to 4 PM on all working days.
Following this the department of Civil Supplies had a detailed meeting with the distributors and IOC officials and issued a press release indicating telephone numbers and the procedure of booking of LPG cylinders.
But even after all these, the output remained next to nil. To check whether the CCS Ltd. had actually followed the order of Lt. Governor, Andaman Sheekha started calling in phone numbers 232357 and 239016 to book two LPG cylinders. Andaman Sheekha made atleast 100 calls in these numbers and found that the first number 232357 is out of order and the second number 239026 was not picked up by anyone. The calls were made from morning 11.00 am to evening 4.20 PM.
Andaman Sheekha team also tried to book LPG online in www.indane.co.in as it was mentioned by Department of CS & CA in its press note but till 5.00 PM the site showed a message “We are performing scheduled service maintenance on Tuesday, April 09, 6,30 pm- Wednesday, April 10 2.00 PM IST. During the upgrade, the www.indane.co.in portal will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” After 5.00 pm when the portal appeared online, the registration form is not opening up and new users are unable to register their names in the site. These all things prove that the press note was issued by Department of CS and CA only to mislead the Lt. Governor and fool general public.
This resulted in crowding of more people at LPG booking counter of CCS at Delanipur and more harassment of public. Many were trying these phone numbers and online booking whole day.
“Those who need LPG cylinder tomorrow or day after, won’t be able to get that as the LPG vehicle won’t come in their locality within this week again. Has this new system has been introduced to harass public or help them,” said an angry resident of Austinabad.
When this is the state of affairs, after personal intervention of Lt. Governor himself then one can understand how much general public, including ladies and senior citizens are suffering while booking LPG from LPG booking counter of CCS.
When contacted the Chairman of CCS Ltd. Mr. RV Reddy took up the matter seriously and contacted the Manager of the LPG booking counter of Delanipur, who gave excuse that because of huge rush of public, telephone calls were not received for half-n-hour but actually for the entire day the telephones were not picked up. Even the Chairman of CCS Ltd. checked this after dialling the numbers.
The last press note of Department of CS and CA said that in case of any complaint regarding the booking of LPG cylinders one can contact Mr. Balbir Singh, Assistant Director (Operation), Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs at telephone number 9434284223. Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. Balbir Singh thrice at 12.30 noon, 2.30 pm and 4.20 pm and updated about the mismanagement and the efforts done by this paper to know how the CCS is following LG’s order but the only answer Andaman Sheekha got is “Within five minutes, I shall get back to you” but till finalization of this report i.e. 11.30 pm Andaman Sheekha office did not get any call from his side.
This is the situation when Media Persons were calling the authorities and one can understand that what a common man is suffering while booking LPG cylinders.
However, Mr. R V Reddy has promised Andaman Sheekha to bring things under total control by tomorrow. He has urged Andaman Sheekha team to visit the LPG booking counter tomorrow at 10.00 am, hope the CCS Ltd. stream lines the system so that customers can get LPG without any trouble.
