The Food Department has seized 584 lPG cylinders from one Rajendra Gas Agency here and initiated action under liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order 2000. The Department has issued instructions to hotels and restaurants to produce the bill of commercial lPG cylinders purchased by them during the past five months (since January 2014) to prove that the cylinders have been purchased legally.
On the instructions of the Collector, Thakur Ram Singh, the officers of the Food Department, including Sanjay Dubey, RC Gulati, Anil Jain and Shahar Zafar Khan, conducted an investigation at the office of Rajendra Gas Agency. The agency was allegedly indulging in refilling the commercial cylinders from domestic cylinders and supplying them illegally to hotels and restaurants of the city for past five months.
On Saturday, the team of Food Department officials had seized a total of 27 commercial use cylinders of Bharat Petroleum Corporation ltd (BPCl), Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation ltd (HPCl) from a person. The names of another two to three gas agencies of Raipur and Durg districts came to light during the course of investigation.
Further investigation revealed the name of Shriram Petroleum Company based in Farishta Complex which was receiving supply of commercial cylinders from Rajendra Gas Agency.The Rajendra Gas Agency refilled the commercial cylinders with lPG from domestic cylinders and supplied them to the company which thereafter supplied these commercial cylinders to hotels and restaurants.The team raided Rajendra Gas Agency and found the number of cylinders less than the declared stocks by the agency. The agency also failed to produce different documents including stock register during inspection.
The team detected violation of the provisions of liquified Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order 2000 at the agency and eventually seized 28 commercial and 556 domestic cylinders. The Department has asked all the hotel and restaurant owners to produce the bill of commercial lPG cylinders procured by them for past five months. If they fail to do so, it will be considered that they have purchased the commercial cylinders by refilling them with help of domestic cylinders. Stern action will be taken against such businessmen, the officials warned.