Dual colour LPG cylinders from next month

The government has decided to enforce duel colour -- red for domestic and blue for commercial use -- liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders from next month — six months after the earlier decision following a dispute between regulating agencies and bottlers.
Earlier, the government had planned to enforce the scheme from January. But has failed due to public pressure.

Secretary at the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers Krishna Hari Baskota directed authorities to enforce dual colour cooking gas cylinders at any cost from June 15. He has directed Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to stop Product Delivery Order of bottlers who do not follow the directive.

Following the enforcement of separate cylinders for domestic use (red) and industrial purposes (blue), consumers without consumer cards will not get discounts. "Therefore, the authority should make people aware about the procedure," he said.

However, two-thirds of LPG — also known as cooking gas — customers do not have consumer cards yet.
According to NOC, of some 958,671 consumers, only 318,994 have received the consumer cards till mid-May. There are around  502,671 cooking gas consumers in Kathmandu valley and 454,000 out of the valley.

Among the LPG bottlers, Nepal Gas has distributed cards to some 34,381 consumers, followed by Metro Kathmandu (4,029), Manoj (2,167), Trishul (1,357), Satyanarayan (1,152), Koshi (793), Om (270), Sahara (364), Shreeram (117), HP (416), Nobel (196) and Luxmi (8,568).

The government has entered 251,190 consumer cards in its data system. "It will deploy teams to issue cards to the remaining consumers," he said.