LPG transporters strike in northeastern states

- Millions of housewives have to struggle without cooking gas

- The wheels of 8,000 trucks stopped

Guwahati 29th August 2020 Saturday

Transporters delivering cooking gas (LPG) cylinders to northeastern states went on strike in protest of a new tender issued by the Indian Oil Corporation.

Indian Oil had issued a tender in Kolkata instead of Guwahati. There was also a move to reduce existing rates. Against this the North East Packed LPG Transporters Association announced an indefinite strike. The association has four thousand members whose eight thousand trucks were transporting LPG cylinders.

The strike disrupted the distribution of thousands of gas-filled cylinders at ten bottling plants, government sources said. As the days go by, the problems of housewives increase. The transporters' strike shut down the Mirza plant outside Guwahati, the North Guwahati plant as well as the Bongaigaon plant in western Assam.

"We have been presenting for the last two years that tenders should be held in Guwahati and not in Kolkata," said Niranjan Mahanta, president of the association.

We are called to Kolkata on very short notice resulting in increased cost of transportation. Besides, transport rates have not increased since 2011 so our profits have declined by 25 per cent.

We were forced to fill 342 cylinders instead of 306 per truck resulting in endangerment of truck and driver safety. Also we were urged to take a ten wheeler truck instead of six wheels. Driving heavy trucks with gas tanks in mountainous areas can be dangerous for both the truck and the driver.

However, an Indian Oil spokesperson claimed that they had not received any notice of the strike. We know nothing about this strike. The spokesperson also claimed that there were enough gas cylinders in the market so that the citizens would not face any problem.