The death of Latha, a housewife and resident of Kodungaiyur, following an LPG gas explosion on Tuesday, has shocked many women across the city who spend almost half their time in the day handling the gas stove and the cylinder.
LPG consumers cite the complete lack of maintenance schedule on part of LPG dealers, whom they accuse of reacting lethargically even when called on the emergency line.
Though the accident on Tuesday has been attributed to a faulty gas tube and failure on part of the residents in turning off the regulator, housewives who spoke to City Express said neither dealers nor the oil companies have any schedule for periodic maintenance.
While they said it was quite easy to detect any rupture in the tube as the leaking gas would be a reliable indicator, there were other parts of the cylinder where faults are hard to identify. Nalini Vijayan, a housewife living in Mylapore, said many a times, the “washer” in the cylinder had a manufacturing defect. “What happens when the washer is not alright is that the regulator does not lock properly in the cylinder. This means that even if we switch off the regulator, there is slight leaking that occurs,” she alleged.
If lack of maintenance was the major issue, response to emergency numbers were of equal concern to the residents. In fact, when City Express decided to test the emergency services of an LPG supplier on Wednesday, it came to light that the response was extremely slow and the mechanic reached the concerned address only 35 minutes after the complaint, with the person attending the call providing no information on precautionary measures.
“There is hardly any response and we are made to make calls multiple times,” alleged a consumer in Egmore. Often, the response of the dealers is that they are short staffed when it came to mechanics. “They usually say there are already several complaints pending and that the available mechanic will attend to the complaints one by one,” said a resident in Vepery, the same reason provided to City Express when it called the helpline.
A senior official at the Fire and Rescue Services said that most of the calls on LPG leak pertained faulty tubes which had not been changed for years or damaged by rodents. “We often tell the dealers when we meet them to instruct workers who supply the cylinders to check for obvious faults. Whether that is carried out is a major question,” the official said. The Service receives at least 20 calls a month from across the city reporting LPG leaks.
Officials advised that the best measure to ensure safety was to switch off the regulator when the stove is not in use and voluntarily check for faults every day. “In case there is a big leak, do not touch any electrical equipments that could result in sparks. Open doors, windows and all other provisions for ventilation and call the Fire Service at once,” said the official on condition of anonymity. Efforts to contact major dealers who supply the cylinder failed.
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