PNG meter explodes in Rohtak; no response from firm helpline

Rohtak, October 28

A piped natural gas (PNG) meter installed at a house in Sector 1, Rohtak, exploded in the wee hours of today. The house owner and his neighbours repeatedly dialled the emergency helpline numbers provided by the company, but there was no response.

“We heard a loud noise while we were asleep in the wee hours. We rushed out and found that the PNG meter had exploded and some its components had fallen down. We turned off the knob and started calling up the emergency helpline numbers, but nobody picked up the phone,” said Sushil Miglani, at whose house the incident took place.

Sanjeev, a neighbour of Miglani, said he called up the emergency helpline numbers several times, but to no avail.

As per the company officials, some maintenance work was going on during which the incident took place.

Pradeep Sharma, Executive Engineer at the BPCL, the company which supplies PNG in Rohtak, admitted that there had been a lapse and that the process to blacklist the third-party maintainer had been initiated.

When questioned about the residents’ complaints that they were not informed about the stoppage of PNG supply due to maintenance work, Sharma stated that a database of the phone numbers of their consumers was being prepared so that they could be informed about the suspension of supply in advance.