AGARTALA, May 13 (TIWN): LPG gas supply to households and commercial establishments is likely to be affected in the coming days as the North East LPG Transport Operators' Association is on 120 hours strike from Monday.

According to an Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) official of the Bishalghar bottling plant the association is on strike protesting the shifting tender dropping negotiation centre from Guwahati   to Kolkata. The strike could further cripple the supply of gas cylinders. LPG dealers said that there could be a problem if the strike continued for more than five days. The official also stated that senior officials of IOC are arriving today from Mumbai in Guwahati for dialogue with the LPG association, for ending the strike. 

A severe shortage of cooking gas is being experienced in the city in the aftermath of a strike by tanker lorry operators. Many IOC distributors have been forced to down shutters and display `No Stock' boards to avoid altercations with irate consumers. Consumers have accused the cooking gas dealers of artificially engineering the scarcity to capitalise on the impending hike in cooking gas rates.

At present, there is a booking backlog of over 20 days and many distributors have not been able to clear bookings after January 2. According to IOC sources, it would take at least ten days or more before normality could be restored.

Says an IOC distributor, "The problem of shortage had started even before the tanker lorries went on strike, because bulk LPG was not coming in. Now that the strike is on, LPG crisis will became more serious.  We received one load yesterday which was snatched off in no time and there won't be any more for the next two days.''