Imphal, October 23 2017: LPG bulk transporters, who have been on a cease work strike since Friday, have decided to suspend their protest and begin bringing in LPG supply to the State from tomorrow .
Their protest came as a blow to the slowly improving condition of LPG availability in the State.
It may be mentioned that Sekmai based LPG bulk transporters launched a cease work strike from Friday to protest the gate notice issued by the IOC on October 6, regarding the addition of surplus 42 numbers of LPG bulk trucks, over the currently existing 152 trucks of the bottling plant, on ad-hoc basis .
However, despite the halt in import of LPG into the State due to the cease work strike by Sekmai based LPG bulk transporters, there was no impact on the LPG supply given by the Sekmai bottling plant to the distributors with the aim of making cooking gas adequately available to the consumers .
It may also be pointed out that there are only four days worth of LPG stock at Sekmai bottling plant and the situation could have taken a grave turn if the transporters had not decided to suspend their protest .
With regard to the gate notice, Sekmai based bulk LPG Transporters Association and All Manipur Bulk LPG Transporters Association held a series of meeting to put forward their demand to the authority concerned .
The associations demanded the gate notice issued on date 6 be made applicable only for Sekmai based transporters and not to include any other transporters .
They also demanded addition of the surplus trucks taking into account the number of Sekmai based transporters .
However, according to the IOC, the gate notice was issued according to the tender procedure and as it is a public tender, the number of additional trucks have been added as per the offers received .
According to the IOC, no restricted tender can be floated for industry tender regarding the addition of 18 MT and 7 MT trucks .
Consumers Affairs Food and Public Distribution (CAF and PD) Minister, Karam Shyam, presided a meeting today in which the Commissioner (CAF and PD), IOC officials and representatives of All Manipur Bulk LPG Transporters Association discussed the pressing issue.
During the meeting, the CAF and PD Minister instructed IOC to cancel the gate notice at the earliest and the bulk transporters to resume work .
The State Government also sent formal notices to both parties .
Although the instruction given by the State Government to the IOC might be somewhat inconvenient, the transporters on the other hand, have suspended their cease work strike .
Speaking to The Sangai Express, a representative of All Manipur Bulk LPG Transporter Association stated that as a result of the notice sent by the State Government, the transporters will suspend their cease work strike and start bringing in LPG to the State from tomorrow .
However, if there is no positive response by Thursday, the transporters will resume cease work from the next day (Friday, October 27), the representative added.
Source: The Sangai Express
