Soon, you can pay for your Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) refill by transferring cash from your e-wallet.
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL), which has a customer base of 35 lakh in Chennai region alone, is in the process of providing training to gas delivery boys and distributors to use e-wallets.
According to sources in IOCL, every day around 77,000 refill bookings/deliveries are made in the Chennai region, which comprises Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai and Vellore districts. And most customers pay by cash. “Not all customers have the exact change and end up complaining that the gas delivery boy pockets the additional cash. If e-wallets are used, the need for cash is eliminated,” the official explained. However, a distributor, who had tried out payment using a particular e-wallet, said that not many customers were comfortable with the system.
Preference for cash
“They are afraid the app may take more money than necessary. They say it is not a fool-proof system and prefer to pay by cash. But there too, we have issues with gas delivery boys asking for extra money,” he said.
Already, IOCL customers have the option to book and pay for refills online, thus avoiding cash transactions. Just last month, this number rose from 0.6 to 0.8% (462 to 616 bookings), meaning more customers were opting for online transactions, the official said. However, distributors said they were not comfortable with the online system as they had to wait for two or three days for cash to be credited to their account. “But when we place orders, unless we pay cash upfront we will not get the load. We have to appoint someone to track the online transactions that are too small in number. It is not worth the effort,” said a distributor. Another distributor said that in case of holidays, it would take more than 48 hours for the money to be credited to their account.
