When there is competition in the market, when service providers know that they can lose their customers for any slack in the service, then the businessmen are always on their toes, to better their services. In the telecom market, with the ability to port their service providers without losing their numbers, the customers have truly experienced the ‘Customer is the King’ Saying.
It looks what was orchestrated in the telecom market, the government is trying to make in the Cooking Gas as well. At least for the State-Owned Fuel Marketers.
Steps are being taken to switch between LPG providers
According to sources, cooking gas users may be able to effortlessly switch service providers soon just like they do with their mobile phone numbers. The government is working to bring the household gas supply business of state-owned fuel marketers on the same platform.
With this in mind, a liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connection from Indian Oil Corp. Ltd can be transferred to Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd (BPCL), or vice versa.
This step is of significance as India has 291.1 million LPG customers as of 1 July.
At present, the process to switch your LPG provider is cumbersome, least to say
Presently, fuel retailers allow their customers to choose the LPG distributor for cylinder refills. Online transfer of the connection to another distributor serving in the same area of their own network is also facilitated.
While portability within a fuel retailer’s network is online and seamless, when one needs to switch to another provider, the process is kind of cumbersome.
Once the plan to bring everyone on the same platform is established, There will be portability across companies. As of now, the portability is within a company, where you can shift from one dealer to another.
With a background of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
The new LPG connection portability plan comes against the backdrop of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. It is a government program that aims to provide free cooking gas connections to poor families. The program has been successful in increasing India’s LPG coverage to 99.5% on 1 January this year from 61.9% as of 1 April 2016.