Stating that the prolonged LP gas scarcity was due to ineffective distribution mechanism, they said the distribution mechanism can be improved by introducing consumer card system.Speaking at a press conference organized at the Ministry of Supplies on Friday, Shambhu Koirala, director general of the Department of Commerce (DoC), said LP gas shortage has become a perennial problem due to ineffective distribution mechanism. "We can make the distribution mechanism effective by rationing LP gas to consumers by introducing consumer cards," he added.
This is not the first time that the need to distribute consumer card was felt. Earlier in 2014, Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) had distributed some 600,000 consumer cards in the market. But it never took the initiative to distribute LP gas on the basis of such cards.
Gyaneshwor Aryal, president of Gas Dealers Federation Nepal, said LP gas bottlers made the situation worse by sending around two million new cylinders in the market. "Even today, bottlers are not providing gas as demanded by the dealers," Aryal said. He also suggested to the government to issue smart cards to make gas distribution more effective.
Urging the government to improve gas distribution at the earliest, Prem Lal Maharjan, president of Nepal Consumers Forum (NCF), said bottlers, dealers and consumers, to some extent, have to be blamed for the prolonged scarcity of LP gas. "While bottlers and dealers have been selling LP gas to commercial firms, hotels and restaurants directly, consumers have been aggravating the situation by holding large number of cylinders."
Speaking at the program, Minister for Supplies Ganesh Man Pun vowed to find root cause of the problem and introduce short-term and long-term plans to cope with the scarcity of LP gas.
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