Consumers fume over gas companies? ?ploy?

DOWN WITH heavy losses, the gas companies have worked out a plan that is proving to be a bad bargain for consumers! The companies have tasked the gas agencies to sell the consumers gas tubes, burners, rice, tea and many other goods to reduce the margin of loss.

DOWN WITH heavy losses, the gas companies have worked out a plan that is proving to be a bad bargain for consumers!

HT Image

The companies have tasked the gas agencies to sell the consumers gas tubes, burners, rice, tea and many other goods to reduce the margin of loss.

The biggest gas company, Indane, has set for its agencies a target of replacing gas tubes of 20 per cent customers each year.

As for those who have applied for a gas connection, they will have to buy a burner to get one.

The business strategy has angered the consumers as the agencies are refusing to provide cylinders if they didn’t replace their tubes or buy burners.

A top official with Indane said the company was facing huge losses because of the subsidy factor. As a result, it was decided to use the agencies as retail outlets.

The company has a consumer base of nearly 8 crore customers all over the country. It is fetching a profit of Rs 20 on gas tube. In Kanpur, the company feels it could earn a profit of Rs 90 lakh alone.

The gas agencies, too, make Rs 50 on each tube, which costs the consumer Rs 170.

Similarly, the pricing of gas burners is on a much higher side. The agencies are making them available for Rs 1,000 and the net profit is Rs 100. But in the market, the prices of burners is not more than Rs 700.

The BPCL or Bharat Gas has gone a step ahead on this front. All its dealers are given tea, namkeen and rice to sell to the customers.

BJP legislator Salil Vishnoi on Friday shot off a memorandum to the district magistrate drawing his attention towards this new business ploy. He has questioned that when the goods sold by the companies were easily available on a much cheaper price in the local market, why was there a compulsion to buy them?

He further underlined the way agencies were refusing to provide cylinders against the customer’s denial to buy the goods.

Indian Oil’s sale officer Sudhakar Giri and general secretary of Association of Kanpur Gas Distributors Bharateesh Mishra had a different take.

They said it was not a business strategy but an effort to check untoward incidents. Ninety per cent of cylinder explosions were caused by faulty rubber tubes and those being provided by the company were more safe and reliable, they said.

When asked why the company didn’t make the customers aware about it, Giri said this aspect would properly be looked into.