Gurgaon: District food supply controller (DFSC) department on Saturday asked gas distributors to submit daily reports on cylinder supply and delivery to check hoarding and black-marketing.At a meeting at the mini secretariat, food supply controller Ashok Kumar asked distributors to report the number of cylinders received from oil companies and the number delivered to consumers each day.The department has created a WhatsApp group for 58 gas distributors in the district. “Each distributor will submit the daily report in the group,” Kumar said. “FIRs will be registered if distributors are caught selling cylinders illegally. Cylinders must be delivered strictly according to booking rules.”Vice-president of LPG distributors association Shashi Kant Sharma said they are in touch with the authorities and are working overtime to supply LPG cylinders to people. “We urge people not to make panic bookings,”he said, adding that supply to domestic consumers was their priority.Haryana City Gas has also issued an advisory to piped natural gas (PNG) consumers, warning of possible supply restrictions and higher tariffs for excess consumption.Company market officer Parth Tyagi said the ongoing crisis in West Asia has affected natural gas availability from suppliers, which could trigger the force majeure clause in the Gas Supply Agreement. A force majeure clause is a provision in a contract that relieves a party from fulfilling its obligations during extraordinary and uncontrollable events such as war, natural disasters, and pandemics. “Depending on the gas flow restrictions, PNG supply may have to be curtailed,” Tyagi said.The company will bill consumers based on their six-month average consumption to manage limited supply. Under the revised tariff structure, charges will be divided into three categories: Rs 90 per kg for consumption up to 80 standard cubic metres (SCM), Rs 140 per kg for 80 to100 SCM and Rs 190 per kg for usage above 100 SCM.About 3 lakh SCM of gas is supplied daily to around 7000 consumers in the district, including hotels, restaurants and industries. Officials said the measures were aimed at ensuring fair distribution of LPG and managing PNG consumption during the ongoing gas supply constraints. Many migrant workers had had been relying on cylinders bought in the black market for Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200, against the govt rate of about Rs 900. Now, with the same cylinder selling for Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000, it has simply gone beyond reach for many.“We cannot afford to pay that much for a cylinder, so we have started cooking on wood,” said Rani, a domestic staffer in Sector 48.
