PUDUCHERRY: With one masterstroke, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited has eliminated a couple of grievances nursed by customers, such as the phone not being answered and having to tip the delivery man generously. By introducing the SMS facility. The facility has been set up after an agreement was reached with the ministry of petroleum and gas companies, whose main concern was to check the bottlenecks in domestic gas supply. Bharat gas users can now book their refills through an SMS, putting an end to the need for a phone call and wastage of time, considering how busy the phone lines always are.At a function on Wednesday, the oil marketing company’s SMS facility through the Automated Unified System (AUS) for booking LPG cylinders in Puducherry and Karaikal was launched by collector G Ragesh Chandra, in the presence of director of civil supplies P Priyatarshny and regional LPG manager, BPCL, K S Shankaran.The customer needs to to do a one-time registration of their mobile numbers with the LPG distributor or may go to www.ebharatgas.com and register themselves. When a refill is required, the customer has to send an SMS by typing LPG and sending it to 57333. A confirmation of the booking is then sent back to the customer with the booking reference number. When the cylinder gets delivered, the customer gets another SMS confirming the delivery. Since the booking is done only through a registered mobile number, it follows that bookings will be taken only from that number. The SMS will cost the customer Rs 3.Bharath gas which serves 25 per cent of the total LPG consumers in Puducherry and Karaikal, has 65,000 LPG customers, who are served through four dealers, said Ramanuj Chari, territory manager, LPG. They could avail of the new facility of SMS refill booking by registering themselves. In Puducherry, there are 40,000 customers covered by LPG distributors, Visweshwar Bharatgas Agencies and Sree Ramachandra Agency. “The main complaint against gas agencies is that of not picking up of the phone,” said Priyatarshny. However, she warned that the facility would become a success only when people especially from the rural areas as well as elderly people got comfortable using it and requested the agencies to educate such consumers.She also advised gas companies to ensure that the delivery men did not charge extra, that is more than the actual cost. Since the price was inclusive of the delivery charges, it was for the gas agencies to ensure that there was no overcharging. The purpose of innovation and reforms for better service would be defeated, unless such unethical practices were curbed, she said.Stating that Aadhar data would be compiled and a comprehensive data base would be in place by the year end, she appealed to dealers to use the Aadhar data base which had details of LPG connections, for eliminating duplication and misuse.
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