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Amid a ruckus in the Lok Sabha, Congress MP Mallu Ravi said on Friday that the opposition is demanding a discussion on the LPG and oil crisis in India, further criticising the Centre for failing to prevent the situation with a proper plan when the West Asia conflict started.
Speaking to ANI, Ravi called on the government to make decisions in a way that there is no shortage of LPG and oil in the country. "What we are asking is a discussion on the LPG and oil crisis in India. As per my information, about 20% of the hotels are closed down. Many of the MSMEs are closed down. And domestic gas, even booking is not an easy thing. Everybody is panicked, and distributors are not coming onto the line. They are not getting the booking. So, what is more important than this? The government failed to prevent this situation by making a proper plan when the war started," he said. "We are a big democratic country with 140 crores of people, having elected representatives of 545 MPs in the Parliament, and the government is there. They should make decisions in such a way that there should not be any crisis in LPG and oil," said Ravi. He pointed out long queues near diesel and petrol pumps and accused the government of blaming the opposition for creating a crisis instead of addressing the real issues. "Kilometre-long queues are there near the diesel and petrol pumps. So, what is more important than that? What they are trying to tell is that they wanted to avoid their failure for not coming to the notice of the people. Congress is the main opposition party in the Parliament. What is the duty of the opposition? The duty of the opposition is to bring the important issues of the people to the notice of the government, and it is the government's duty to properly attend to them,' Ravi stated. "Instead, yesterday, the Petroleum Minister said there is no crisis. The Prime Minister says the opposition is artificially creating a crisis. What is this? This is rather blaming the opposition people who are trying to bring the real problem to the notice of the government, so that they will at least now have a plan to see that people will get proper LPG and also oil," Ravi added. Meanwhile, amid rising concerns over global supply constraints of LPG due to the ongoing tensions in West Asia, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Friday assured that India has adequate availability of petrol and diesel across the country, while the LPG situation continues to remain a "matter of concern" for the government. Speaking during an inter-ministerial briefing, Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary (Marketing & Oil Refinery) at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said petrol and diesel supplies remain stable and available at all fuel stations. "Petrol and diesel are available in adequate quantities at all petrol pumps... Regarding LPG, I would like to state that this remains a matter of concern for us. Nevertheless, despite this situation, no dry out has been reported at any of our 25,000 distributors. I would like to appeal to all fellow citizens not to give credence to rumours and to refrain from engaging in panic buying," said Sujata Sharma. Sharma asserted that India remains self-sufficient in the production of petrol and diesel and has a refining capacity of 258 million metric tons. She further added that all refineries in the country are currently operating at 100 per cent capacity or higher and have adequate crude oil inventories. (ANI)
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