If your housing society has applied for piped gas then this review is for you. If your society already has piped gas then proceed to last para.
To obtain piped gas connection you have to fill in a form(obviously) and pay a 50% advance(Rs 2, 500). After that, you have to start the process of telephoning them once a week, appealing to their good senses and praying to the Gods as well as to the Mahanagar Gas Limited(MGL) officials. Many thousands of phone calls and prayers later, the working crew from MGL will finally arrive. You leap for joy and are prepared to distribute pedas but very soon your joy turns into shock and revulsion as the crew begin digging up the society premises making it resemble any of the ugly dug up roads in Mumbai. Cars that were taken out of the premises before the work began will not be able to enter and those that were not taken out will not be able to leave the premises until the entire work is completed. The digging takes about four to five days.
The open trenches and mountains of mud soon become play grounds for the kids and an area of concern for the parents. Flat become dirty and everything is dust coated. One week later a truck will arrive and offload large yellow pipes. These will be inserted into the trenches. Finally, about 15 days after the trenches were first dug up, they will be closed(sort of). The mud and stones will still lie around. A week later a new crew will arrive start attaching the pipes to the society walls, drilling a large ole into your lovely kitchen, installing a large ugly looking gas meter, fitting an even uglier looking copper pipe from the gas meter to the stove. This ugly coper turns black within a week.(Miracle of Mumbai polution)
Depending on the number of flats that have opted for piped gas, the process of attaching these pipes, gas meter etc. takes about one month. Meanwhile kids continue to play in the mud. Around this time, another crew will arrive and start pouring cement into the half closed trenches. A truck will also arrive to take away all that lose mud.(If one truck is not sufficient to take away all the mud, its time to pray because the next truck will probably not come for a week or so). If the area that was dug was originally covered with tiles. Your housing society will have to purchase and provide the new tiles. MGL will do the fitting about one month after they are informed that the tiles have come. Meanwhile the accountants will start doing the rounds trying to collect the balance of the money that is due.(Total cost is approx. Rs 5, 000/- per flat).
The workers who come to lay the tiles need to be heavy bribed into doing a proper job. Also, the housing society will have to offer money to pay for additional cement requirement. The bribe and payment for additional cement is required because the contractors hired by MGL will virtually not use any cement. They will simply put sand, cover it with a fine layer of cement water and press the tile on top of that. If your society bribes the workers and offers to pay for additional cement then only will the workers do a slightly better job. After the tile laying is completed, a truck will arrive to remove all the remaining ruble and stones.
A word of advise: Your society should collect the piped gas connection amount(Rs5000/- per flat), pay 50% on application and pay the balance only after the last tile is put and all other work is completed. When everything is completed and the dust settles, it’s a pleasure to use the piped gas – its cheaper and more convenient. The idea of this review is to prepare you for what happens after your application is accepted by MGL.
Running Cost: The gas meeter has three red numbers to the extreem right. These are decimal counters. When they cross 999 you will have consumed one unit. A family of two will typically consumes approx. 1 unit of gas per week. As of March 2007, one unit costs Rs 10.51+ vat. There is no monthly rental.