Oil marketing companies have decided to bring in technological interventions with a view to remove bottlenecks in distribution system and aim to make the system fool-proof by the end of this fiscal against the backdrop of capping in the number of subsidised cylinders.
The three OMCs, which distribute gas to over 14 crore registered customers across the nation, are currently piloting three different interventions based on bar-coding, an RFID card and a GPRS device which will be implemented by next March, BPCL executive director George Paul told PTI here.
"Suddenly, this cylinder capping issue has come, otherwise pilots were going on in step by step method. Now, there is an urgency to bring it faster," said Paul, who handles liquefied petroleum gas vertical for Bharat Petroleum Corporation.
He further said some system should be in place by March, which will take care of the present set of troubles being faced by customers in wake of the government's September 14 decision to cap the subsidised cooking cylinders at 6 per year and the rest of cylinders at market rate, which is more than double the first six cylinders.
Paul also said a full-scale implementation across the nation will not be possible by March but a start would have been made by then.
Under the present practice, which operates largely manually, a customer is required to have a domestic gas consumer card (DGCC) which keeps the record of the number of gas cylinders purchased.
However, it has been found that a majority of customers misplace such cards due to the legacy of non-usage due to which they are forced to go to a nearby distributor, complete certain KYC (know your customer) requirements and get new cards, he said.
Apart from it, there are also issues like one person being registered in multiple addresses or the same address having multiple connections which also need to be sorted out, Paul said.
The planned technological initiatives will do away with the tedious processes at present in place and put in place a transparent system.
Under the barcoding system, a barcode will be pasted on the customer's DGCC which can be read by the delivery person using a special device, while for the RFID card-based system, the customer will have to swipe and enter a PIN number in a special device to execute the delivery, Paul said.
For the GPRS-based system, the delivery person will be carrying a mobile-phone like device which will intimate a remote server as soon as the delivery is done, he added.
After the September 13 announcement, seen by many as a reform measure which will reduce the subsidy burden on the Government by around 23,000 crore this fiscal, consumers in Mumbai can get subsidised 14.2 kg cylinders for Rs 435. Once they exhaust their quota of six, they will pay Rs 906.50 for the same cylinder.
Institutions like hospitals will have to pay Rs 1,131.50 under a newly made category called exempted category.
According to Paul, the move to impose caps, though fraught with troubles initially, is a very bold step given the escalating subsidy burdens.
In 2011-12, the government spent Rs 32,000 crore towards LPG subsidies, which was estimated to shoot up to up to Rs 47,000 crore in FY13 if not for the caps. In the June quarter alone, the LPG subsidy burden had risen to Rs 11,495 crore.