The country is facing no shortage of domestic cooking gas at the moment, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
"Public sector oil marketing companies have reported that at present, there is no overall shortage of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) in the country," he said in a written reply to a question.
As on October 1, 2007, OMCs were serving 9.79 crore LPG customers through their 9,355 distributorships. OMCs have released 27.7 lakh new LPG domestic connections in the country during April-September.
"OMCs have reported a waiting list of only
68,813 in certain states/union territories as on November 1, 2007 for release of new domestic LPG connections... because of backlog in supplies due to road breaches, floods, natural calamities and strikes which are beyond the control of OMCs," he said.
"This waiting list is expected to be liquidated by December 15," he said.
Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum use indigenous production and imports to meet the domestic demand.
The number of domestic LPG customers has increased from 7.72 crore as on April 1, 2004 to 9.43 crore as on April 1, 2007.