There are 2.37 crore active domestic consumers in Tamil Nadu.
| Photo Credit: Anirudh Parthasarathy 10914@Chennai
As the stoppage of operations by the Southern Region Bulk LPG Transport Owners’ Association continues, the state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) have activated what they call plan B to ensure supplies to 2.37 crore active domestic consumers in Tamil Nadu and eight crore consumers in the six southern States.
The three companies – Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum, and Bharat Petroleum – are operating extra shifts at bottling plants that get liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supplies via pipelines. They are also sending cylinder-carrying trucks, to these plants to collect refilled cylinders. “The three companies that market LPG under Indane, HP Gas, Bharat Gas brands are helping each other too. Plants with pipeline supplies are working on Sunday also,” said an official with the HPCL.
As far as Chennai is concerned, Indian Oil has two bottling plants that are connected. The Chennai Petroleum Corporation refinery at Manali also supplies LPG to IOCL. Official sources in Indian Oil said the city would not face any issue in drawing supplies as they had four-and-a-half days of stock left.
A distributor of another company said his last load was distributed on Saturday. For Monday, in place of his regular two loads per day, he will get only one. “I was told to go to the plant of another oil company to pick up the load,” he said.
Another distributor said that despite this being the Deepavali season, bookings were not too high. “They are just above normal. We can manage. But deliveries are taking about three to four days and not on the same day,” he said.
The Southern Region Bulk LPG Transport Owners Association is protesting against new contract norms for tanker lorries supplying LPG.
Association president K. Sunderraj said they had day-long meetings with senior officials of the OMCs, and were waiting for a positive response. “Our contract period got over by August 31 and the new period starts only on November 1… Single truck owners are also part of our association and about 500 of those trucks have been affected by certain issues. We want those to be resolved. We do not intend to trouble consumers in any way during the festive season,” he said.
Published – October 12, 2025 12:44 am IST
