FLDI demands priority vaccination for delivery staff, recognition as Covid frontline worriers

New Delhi: As the entire country is battling with coronavirus infection, the Federation of LPG Distributors of India (FLDI) has urged the government at the centre to recognize the LPG delivery staffs as the 'Corona Frontline Warriors' and demanded a prior vaccination for them.

While speaking to the Millennium Post Pawan Soni, the General Secretary of FLDI mentioned, "The LPG workers are frightened to deliver the cylinders as they are turning into super spreaders by visiting lakhs of houses. Their families are getting affected.

The delivery boys are refusing to work without proper vaccination and leaving workplaces."

There are almost 3 lakh delivery persons who visit 65-75 lakh houses and have access to more than 3 crore people daily, which makes them vulnerable to turn into a super spreader. During this second wave of the pandemic, about 50 thousand of the distributors, their staffs and families got infected with coronavirus, out of which more than 500 have lost their lives.

In 2013 there were 12,500 distributors across the country; the number has increased to 25,000 now. The FLDI has written almost 50 letters to the petroleum ministry since the coronavirus outbroke in India in the last year regarding this issue, but the government has not taken any measure so far, Soni claimed.

The federation has 23 branches and 12000 members across the country. It mentioned in an official statement that "The LPG distributors and their office/delivery staff are religiously serving their esteemed customers since the beginning of the pandemic till date but feel betrayed for not being acknowledged for their relentless services. The concerned authorities have miserably failed in recognizing their efforts towards society. Today our delivery and office staff are both physically and mentally exhausted. They have started showing reluctance in going for home delivery without being vaccinated despite the distributor's best effort to convince them. The LPG Home delivery system is crumbling steadily."

The federation has also claimed that the OMC officials on the other side, instead of lending a helping hand, are burdening the distributors with new challenges, which are impossible to meet even in ordinary times adversely affecting the delivery of essential commodity i.e. Domestic LPG.

The West Bengal government already decided to categorise people, who are in the groups of super spreaders, including the LPG distributors and delivery boys, so that they can be vaccinated through different windows. A database is getting prepared to contain the details about the people in the super spreader categories.

Distributors' demands related to OMCs are to get the LPG bottling plants inspected through an external authority to check the accounts and quality of the equipment and products supplied by them, to restrict them from supplying under-weight, body leak, direct and expiry date cylinders to the distributors and in turn endangering the lives of the public at large.

To initiate action against the company officials pushing subsidized and non-subsidized LPG products beyond the licensed capacity of LPG godowns, without demand or requirement from distributors, flouting the norms set by PESO in the process. Third, to initiate action against the company officials amending distributor indents arbitrarily, replacing them with non-subsidized products to fulfil their impractical targets, ignoring the current COVID-19 situation. To initiate action on the company officials doing 'Proactive & Auto' booking of the domestic subsidized product and compelling the distributors to deliver refills within a single day.

Also, to stop compelling the distributors from showing the cash payments received from the customers as digital payments illegally and not to send show-cause notices under Target Delivery Time Norms at a time when the majority of the distributors are operating with limited manpower and the force majeure clause is applicable due to the pandemic.

Further, to initiate strict action against the company officials for sending loads on credit without any demand from the distributors, charging a heavy interest upto Rs 5000/- per day i.e. 700 per cent per annum.

The FLDI has given a 15-day notice to fulfil both, the LPG delivery staff-related and OMCs related demands.