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What?s cooking, LPG dealers?
THE DELAY IN implementation of an SMS-based LPG booking system by oil marketing companies has triggered a shortage of domestic cylinders during the festive season!
THE DELAY IN implementation of an SMS-based LPG booking system by oil marketing companies has triggered a shortage of domestic cylinders during the festive season!
But, how? The system was supposed to keep a check on a massive use of domestic cylinders by commercial setups. The SMS booking was expected to keep a record of domestic bookings to discourage commercial usage of domestic LPG. But, in the absence of this, LPG dealers are cashing in on the situation by raising the shortage bogey during the festive season.
The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) with the largest base of LPG consumers in the city has yet to experiment the system. However, the company has already done so in five districts of Rajasthan this year. They plan to fully cover Rajasthan by January 2007.
The Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) implemented the system in Kerala in 2003.
The system effectively prevents hoarding of LPG cylinders by the retailers who later on divert them to commercial users as every booking made by the customer is monitored centrally by the monitoring team of oil marketing companies where dealers are under watch for every delivery of cylinder made on a particular day from retail outlets.
How does the SMS-based system work? A customer sends his consumer number through his mobile phone to a central server of an oil marketing company which redirects the message to the computer terminal of the concerned LPG dealer for registration. The automated system sends back a message to the central server and the consumer that his request has been registered.
“We haven’t yet received any intimation from the headquarters on any plans for implementing a project for the system. We will let you know as soon as we get a communication in this regard,” says IOC chief area Manager ( LPG Marketing Division) C P Unnikrishnan. During the visit of the IOC Chairman Sarthak Behuria to the state capital two months ago, the IOC advertised in local newspapers raids were being planned on establishments using domestic LPG for commercial purposes.
However, no such raids have been announced so far.
