Cooking gas users may get to switch service providers

Cooking fuel customers might be able to seamlessly change service suppliers quickly identical to they do with their cell phone numbers, three folks conscious of the event mentioned, with the federal government working to carry the family fuel provide enterprise of state-owned gas entrepreneurs on the identical platform.

Beneath the plan, a liquified petroleum fuel (LPG) connection from Indian Oil Corp. Ltd will be transferred to Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL), or vice versa.

The three gas retailers are collectively growing software program to carry their complete liquified petroleum fuel enterprise information on the identical platform, the folks cited above mentioned on situation of anonymity.

This assumes significance on condition that India has 291.1 million LPG prospects as of 1 July. Presently, the gas retailers permit their prospects to decide on the LPG distributor for cylinder refills and on-line switch of the connection to a different distributor serving in the identical space of their very own community.

“A typical database for LPG connection portability is being created,” mentioned a senior authorities official, one of many three folks cited above.

Whereas portability inside a gas retailer’s community is on-line and seamless, that’s not the case if one wants to modify to a different supplier.

The method includes a bodily give up of the connection first after which going for a reference to the LPG distributor of one other retailer, which at occasions turns into tedious and time-consuming.

“In case of inter-company connection switch, each dad or mum and vacation spot distributor get advance intimation about shopper’s switch request with monitoring choices for purchasers. Nevertheless, the client wants to go to the dad or mum distributorship for surrendering of LPG tools as accounting of kit and safety deposit is concerned,” the oil ministry mentioned in a 24 June 2019 assertion.