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The ministry of petroleum had launched the LPG connection portability scheme in 24 districts covering 13 states in October 2013, taking a cue from the number portability scheme in telecom sector. However, unlike mobile portability, LPG has found few takers.

According ministry officials, portability was availed by only a “few hundred customers or probably close to thousand customers” till now.  The scheme was first launched in Chandigarh in early 2013. “We are happy that the number of consumers who availed the scheme is very low. This shows that the efficiency level of companies and dealers are increased,” said a senior ministry official.

Last week, the scheme was launched on a full-fledged all-India basis by expanding its coverage to over 480 districts and a population of over 8.2 crore LPG consumers across the country. In order to facilitate LPG consumers to benefit from the portability scheme, the OMCs have made more than 1,400 clusters  distributors in over 480 districts with an average of almost four distributors per cluster to choose from.

“This is a positive that because customer would be the king now. We are getting a lot of queries in this regard specially after the national launch. This would make the dealers more disciplined in their service,” believes Parminder Singh of Rupinder Gas Agency from Chandigarh.

According to Singh, facilities like no transfer fee applicable to this would make it more attractive for customers. On the other hand, in case of intra-company portability request, the LPG consumer has to visit only the new distributor. “For applications till now, in most cases dealers were able to hold back those who had applied for portability. The ministry is happy with this development and hence we had gone for a national launch now. The success of this scheme lies in conferring the power with the consumer to be able to change the distributor and the oil company, which forces the distributor and oil company to perform and not in large number of portability requests,” another ministry official said.

Apart from cluster approach, proactive electronic tracking of portability request is also in place right up to its closure to ensure that LPG consumers do not face any difficulty in moving to the distributor of their choice.

Source-On Request