The Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry has launched “Project Lakshya” to reduce waiting time for delivery of LPG cylinders and track duplicate connections, by enrolling the assistance of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) through a new software.
The results of this drive have been outstanding with the three oil marketing companies (OMCs) — Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) — reporting a fall in consumption of domestic LPG cylinders.
The OMCs have till date blocked nearly 8 million inactive connections, which were potentially being misused. They have traced 1.3 million same-address, same-name connections which have been since blocked; 25.3 million suspected connections with same address have been detected; 4 million of them have been blocked so far and verification for the rest is in progress. A total of 13.3 million LPG connections have been blocked so far.
New software was developed after it was found that it took nearly 27 days in Uttarakhand to find duplicates. Now under the new module developed by the NIC and C-DAC, it would take just a few days. The OMCs have also decided to prepare a list of suspected connections and paste it at the office of each LPG distribution to help eliminate duplicates. “This is a new initiative being taken by the OMCs in the wake of the capping of subsidised cylinders. The whole exercise is aimed at preventing fake additional connections for getting more subsidised cylinders, monitor those who consumed less than six [cylinders] in the past, detect and block multiple connections with the three oil companies,” a senior OMC official remarked.
Customers would be free to opt for fully non-subsidised cylinders on the basis of self-declaration. Verification will be done after release of connection as in the case of passports under the “Tatkal” regime. There will be a domestic gas consumer card (DGCC), which will have to be signed by the delivery boy after cross-checking DGCC number in cash memo acknowledgement slip.
The LPG cylinder receipts will carry serial numbers like 1/6, 2/6 and 3/6. The customer will be required to sign on acknowledgement slip of cash memo; whenever delivery is made, an SMS would be sent to the customer to know if the actual delivery of the cylinder has been made or not.
