Thiruvananthapuram: Almost all the gas agencies in the state are violating the directive of the Supreme Court that delivery boys should carry weighing equipment. As a result, around 60 lakh LPG customers in the state cannot make sure that the cylinders are of the specific weight.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya on October 18 last year had ordered that cylinders should be delivered to the customers after weighing them. The oil companies had also issued an order making it mandatory for gas agencies to comply with the Supreme Court verdict.
Indian Oil Corporation Corporate Communication Manager Vetri Selva Kumar told DC that the customers did not want to get the ire of the delivery boy or the agencies. Hence, there are only a few complaints regarding theunderweight of LPG in many cases, he said.
M. Sangeeth Kumar, general secretary of all-India LPG Distributors' Association, Kerala circle, said that there are some practical difficulties in enforcing the directive.
Delivery boys are reluctant to carry the hanging weighing machine to homes and in most cases leave them behind in their vehicles, he said. Another directive was that each agency should unload the cylinders after weighing them. However, each load reaching an agency would have around 300 cylinders.
It is difficult to ensure that headload workers weigh each cylinder before delivery, Sangeeth Kumar said. All the gas agencies have sufficient hanging weighing machines which cost around Rs 1,700 each only, he said.
