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New Delhi: The Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have launched new IT / web enabled initiatives to make distribution of domestic LPG more customer friendly and enhance transparency.  Project ‘Lakshya’, initiated by the Government, focuses on greater customer empowerment, better subsidy administration, enhanced transparency in the distribution chain; along with a slew of IT-based customer service initiatives in the LPG business.

Mobile applications

• Around half the LPG customers have given their mobile numbers to OMCs and they are becoming more and more tech-savvy.
• Mobile applications provide easy access to information and access to services and are being launched today by all the three OMCs.
• A mobile application has been developed which can be downloaded by customers on their android based phones to perform several web functions from their phones.
• Refill booking, booking for second cylinder, complaints, seeing history of supplies, hotplate repair, surrendering connections, rating distributors will become available in mobile also.
• Mobile connectivity to customers also provides a communication channel for OMCs to educate customers on the safety, new initiatives and schemes etc.
                                    
Pilot on web enabled distributor portability

• To provide customer greater choice to select his distributor and to bring competition amongst distributors, portability is being launched as a pilot in Chandigarh. It will be expanded to 25 more districts in 2013-14.
• This will motivate distributors to provide better service to customers.
• The request for portability can be made electronically on the web portal and will be completed without manual intervention.
• To start with, it will be within each OMC and will graduate to across companies as well.
• Customers can now switch from one distributor to a better star rated distributor within the cluster of distributors.
• Portability will bring in competition in the markets and thereby it will improve customer service.

Apply on-line for new LPG connection

• OMCs have provided the facility for booking of new connections through their respective portals for some time now. This is a powerful feature designed to enable convenience for new prospective customers.
• Customers with their email IDs can register for a new domestic LPG connection through the Web by entering requisite details in the KYC format.  
• The prospective customers will get a confirmatory mail of having successfully registered without having to visit the distributorship.  He automatically gets wait listed and an email is sent to him.
• He then visits the distributorship once to submit the requisite documents (POI and POA) and avail the connection. 
• This greatly benefits the customers as he has to visit the showroom only once to get the new connection.

The OMCs had earlier launched the ‘Transparency portal’ through which customers are empowered to know their consumption and enabled civil society activists to look through and flag anomalies in the distribution of LPG cylinders.

Kerala IT News