Drivers and transporters have been warned not to ignore that CNG cylinders installed in their vehicles have an expiry date as expired cylinders are not safe for use and do cause accidents. Dr Iqbal A Said, former director general of environment protection agency (EPA-Sindh) talking to APP Wednesday said drivers running their vehicles on CNG must ensure that date of expiry of cylinders is properly inscribed. “Owners of vehicles must be extremely cautious at the time of accepting any CNG cylinder from the vendor,” said the environmentalist. He said the expiry of CNG cylinder is mentioned on one of three side stems of the cylinder and the expiry date is coded alpha numerically. “It could be A or B or C or D and some three digit number following this as D011 and so forth,” he said. Elaborating the relevance of alphabets, he said each of these stand for quarters as A for March (first quarter), B for June (second quarter), C for Sept (third quarter), D for December (fourth quarter). “The digits stand for the year till it is valid,” he explained and mentioned that D011 would mean December quarter of 2011. Dr Said said that many of the unfortunate incidents reported, only recently may not have had happened if checks were done timely.
