KOCHI: With the hike in fuel price and shortage of gas cylinders, a mafia has popped up in the city which diverts LPG cylinders meant for household purposes to black market. The racket supplies LPG cylinders for commercial purposes, mainly to hoteliers and autorickshaw operators. The shadow police had recently conducted raids on hotels and seized 32 cylinders from different parts of the city.The recent raids by the police have exposed the nexus between the LPG mafia and a section of gas dealers in the city. The city police and shadow police had seized at least 500 cylinders from the mafia in the past three years. Autorickshaw drivers and hoteliers are the main customers of the LPG racket.M N Ramesh, Assistant Commissioner in charge of shadow police, said they had seized more than 100 cylinder this year during various raids. The illegal activity has been on the rise after the demand for cylinders went up owing to fuel price rise and shortage of cylinders. “The mafia operates in connivance with the gas agencies. Hoteliers, autorickshaw operators and people who do not have a gas connection fall easy prey to the racket. The gas agents keep the consumer card of the customers and purchase gas cylinders without their knowledge. The agents play their part by providing them cylinders in every ten days and the commission from it is shared by both the parties,” M N Ramesh said.According to Ramesh, the presence of a huge floating population in the city helps the black marketeers to thrive. “ Since the people arriving from other places do not get gas connection easily, they approach the agents supplying LPG cylinders in black market. During raids we had seized refillers and equipment used to transfer gas from one cylinder to other. The police have intensified the raids on places where such illegal activities are conducted. Ramesh, a worker in a gas agency in Kadavanthra said around 15 cylinders are sold to nearby hotels every day. Many of the residents who have no gas connection owing to lack of residence certificate also buy the cylinders. Another major fact is that on an average more than 50 cylinders are required every month for restaurants and hotels which have a good turnover and very few hotels are functioning with more than 20 gas connections.
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