There is going to be a major change in the rules related to booking, subsidy and delivery of LPG cylinders from October 1 for more than 30 crore domestic consumers of the country who use LPG. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and oil marketing companies (IOCL, BPCL, HPCL) have mandated new guidelines to completely crack down on misuse of government subsidies, commercial use and fake gas connections. If you have not yet completed the mandatory biometric e-KYC of your gas connection or are not aware of the new booking rules, your subsidy may stop from October 1 and there may be serious disruptions in refill booking. To ensure that the gas stove does not cool down during the festive season, it is very important to understand these 5 major changes.
The most important change in the rules coming into effect from October 1 is the requirement of biometric Aadhaar authentication. According to the government, to ensure that the benefit of domestic subsidized 14.2 kg cylinder reaches only genuine and eligible households, it has been made mandatory to link each connection to the consumer's Aadhaar biometric. About 90 percent of active consumers in the country have completed this verification. For consumers whose e-KYC is still pending, the facility of refill booking at subsidized rates will be stopped from October 1 until they complete their e-KYC process.
Those consumers who have not completed their biometric verification by September 30, their gas connections will not be disconnected, but the government subsidy per cylinder received by them will be stopped. Such consumers will be put in non-subsidy category and will be given cylinders only at market rate (full market price). If a consumer is unable or unwilling to undergo e-KYC, he will have to file a declaration on the oil companies' portal and will be provided only small cylinders of 5 or 10 kg without subsidy.
The government has also made the rules for the mandatory booking interval gap between two cylinder bookings uniform. While earlier consumers in rural areas had to wait a long time of 45 days to book another refill after delivery of a cylinder, now this period has been reduced to a uniform 25 days for all urban and rural consumers across the country. That means the system will accept the booking of the next cylinder only after completion of 25 days of the previous cylinder reaching home, which will prevent black marketing.
The 'Delivery Authentication Code' (DAC) system has been further tightened to ensure safe delivery. Whenever a customer books a refill from his registered mobile number, a unique 4 or 6 digit DAC code will be sent to his mobile via SMS. When the delivery boy reaches your home with the cylinder, it will be mandatory to tell him this code. The delivery person will enter the code in his mobile machine, only then the delivery will be considered successful. This step has been taken to prevent fraud in delivering the cylinder to another person or to the wrong address.
Like the first of every month, on October 1 too, revised prices of domestic and commercial LPG cylinders will be announced based on international crude oil and gas rates. Along with this, oil companies are taking action to identify and permanently block duplicate and illegal connections running under the same name, same address or on fake basis with the help of new databases.
For the convenience of consumers, oil companies have made the e-KYC process very easy and available with three different options:
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From home mobile app: Download your gas agency's app (like IndianOil ONE from Indane, HelloBPCL from Bharatgas or HP Pay from HP Gas) from Google Play Store. Also install UIDAI's 'Aadhaar FaceRD' app. Login to the app and go to 'Aadhaar e-KYC' option and complete e-KYC through face-authentication by blinking in front of the camera.
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Cylinder Delivery Time: When the delivery boy comes to your home to deliver the refill, you can get the verification done on the spot by getting your fingerprint or face scanned through the POS machine near him or the company's official mobile app.
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By visiting the gas agency: You can get e-KYC done in 2 minutes by visiting the office of your nearest gas agency/distributor with your original Aadhar card and gas passbook and by placing your thumb on the biometric machine.
To avoid inconvenience and financial loss, be sure to check the e-KYC status of your connection by visiting MyLPG.in portal before October 1.