Increase in LPG price causes pressure on consumers

The liquid petroleum gas prices continue to hike in the Barisal region causing tremendous pressure on the limited income of the middle and low income groups.
The retail price of a LPG cylinder increased Tk 50-60 in last 10 days.


With this in past six months retail LPG prices hiked Tk190-200 per cylinder.
The dealers in the Barisal city said the LPG cylinder producers raised the prices for nine times in last one year.
Referring to the manufacturers, the dealers had put down the price hike to the shortage of supply coupled with the increase in the production and transportation costs.
During visits to the markets, this correspondent found that all the private LPG companies, which cover over 95 per cent supply in the Barisal division, had increased their prices.
Bashundhara and Klinhit raised the price of its 12.5 kilogram cylinder from Tk 1180 to Tk 1260, Total Gas from Tk 1180 to Tk 1290 and the privately owned Jamuna from Tk 1260 to Tk 1315 in last ten days.
Pankaj Gupta, a LPG retailer, said the total monthly demand in the division was nearly one lakh cylinders but the supply had never exceeded 60 thousand.
Usually dealers retailed a cylinder adding Tk 100, which included transportation and other expenses and the profit, to the price at which they bought it from the companies, several dealers in the city said.
Pankaj also said that they had to give bribe to a section of staff at both the public and private companies to procure the cylinders which contributed to the price hike.
Barisal deputy commissioner, ASM Arifur Rahman, in a meeting with the LPG manufacturers and retailers, said the government had decided that a cylinder could be sold at prices 10-15 per cent higher than the factory prices.
Ranjit Dutta, Barisal district coordinator of Consumers Association of Bangladesh, observed that the urban middle class and the food shops had to buy it at whatever price it was sold.
'Presently there's no easy alternative for them,' he said adding that the government must take immediate and stern measures to control this unbearable situation.
Source: New Age