Vikramaditya & Savita Kumari
Port Blair, Nov 24: Shortage of commercial LPG cylinders has become a new challenge for hotel and restaurant owners in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, who have just recovered from the shock of lockdowns and pandemic restrictions.
As per the reports after the pandemic period and lockdown restrictions more and more hotels and restaurants have again entered into business, even large number of tourists have also started arriving in these Islands, but severe shortage of commercial LPG Cylinders is hitting the hotel and restaurant business hard.
People associated with the hotel industry and restaurants alleged that neither the commercial LPG cylinders are being delivered at their hotels or restaurants nor the cylinders are available with the dealers.
Meanwhile this is worth mentioning here that using a domestic LPG cylinder for commercial use is a crime, but if commercial cylinders are not available even after the buyers are ready to pay double the original price, where should people go and lodge complain.
When Andaman Sheekha contacted a local distributor of LPG cylinders, he said on the condition of anonymity that the main problem behind shortage of commercial LPG cylinders is that they are not getting a sufficient supply of cylinders from IOC.
“If we demand 400 commercial LPG cylinders then only 200 cylinders are being supplied to us,” he added.
He added that after opening of tourism in Swaraj Dweep Island, nearly 150 commercial LPG cylinders have been sent to the island, which has also created a shortage in Port Blair City. However, he assured that the problem will be resolved in 4-5 days.
