Written by Avinash Nair | Ahmedabad | Posted: November 22, 2014 3:57 pm | Updated: November 22, 2014 4:13 pm
Vadnagar, the birthplace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat will be looking to make a mark on the national scene, as the Indian Oil Corporation Limited — the only provider of LPG in this town — looks to relaunch the DBTL (Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG) across Gujarat in January 1, 2015. This sleepy town in North Gujarat, currently has a DBTL coverage of about 45 percent which is one of the highest in Gujarat and is now is targetting to complete the enrollement ahead of others in the state.
“The town currently has over 16,700 active LPG customers, 45 percent of whom are already enrolled under DBTL. This is one of the highest enrollement we have in the state,” official sources connected with LPG business of IOC told The Indian Express.
Though Aadhaar card is no more mandatory to avail the benefit of this scheme, over 7554 customers have already been registered using Aadhaar at Vadnagar — which is part of Mehsana district — when the DBTL was first rolled out in Gujarat in June 2013.
“About 10 percent or 6.5 lakh of the existing 65 lakh LPG customers were covered under DBTL in last year in Gujarat. Of the 6.5 lakh customers covered, 50 percent belonged to IOC where we covered the districts of Porbandar, Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Junagadh, Rajkot and Amreli,” said DK Sharma, General Manager (I/C) & State Level Coordinator for IOC in Gujarat while briefing mediapersons on Friday.
Though Porbandar and Junagadh districts tops all the districts in the percentage of LPG customers covered under DBTL, the town of Vadnagar had a higher DBTL coverage of 45 percent in the process that began last year, but was discontinued after a couple of months.
Arvind Patel, who runs the Parul Gas Agency at Vadnagar says over the phone, “We recently had a meeting with IOC officials, who have given us a target of covering 90 percent of our customers by the end of December this year. We are doing our best in achieving this mark.” Though Prime Minister Modi’s eldest brother Sombhai Modi is one of the customers of the company, Patel was unsure if the DBTL has reached the prime minister’s extended family living in Vadnagar. “I will have to check records, for that (information),” he added.
Meanwhile, another senior IOC officer who did not wish to be named said, “This time, we plan to monitor the spread of DBTL in Vadnagar on a daily basis. We plan to complete the enrollment as soon as possible, after all IOC is the only provider of LPG cylinders in the town.”
“In Gujarat, we have kept a target of enrolling 90 percent of the LPG customers by January 15, 2015. For this we have asked our distributors to enroll between 5000 to 6000 customers on a daily basis,” said IOC’s Sharma adding that the oil marketing companies relaunch the DBTL scheme in Gujarat from January 1, 2015, by transferring cash directly to the bank account of the consumers who are already enrolled under the scheme.
Timeline for relaunch of DBTL
> LPG consumers who joined the scheme earlier by linking their Aadhaar number in LPG and bank database will get cylinders at market price from January 1, 2015. Cash will be directly transferred to their bank accounts.
> Aadhaar continues to be preferred mode of joining the scheme. Consumers can either approach their respective LPG distributor or banks with Aadhaar card details.
> Customers not having Aadhaar cards can also give their bank details to LPG distributor or given the 17digit LPG-id to the bank.
> Between Jan 1-March 31, 2015, any LPG consumer who does not join the scheme will continue to get the cylinder at subsidized prices as they are getting it today
> Between Apr 1- June 30, 2015, consumer who still did not join will start getting the cylinders at market price. Cash admissible will be parked with OMCs. IF they join the scheme within the 3-month period, the parked cash will be sent to their bank account, else it will lapse.
> July 1, 2015 onwards, consumers who have still not joined the scheme will get the cylinder at market price. The cash subsidy will not be admissible.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/ioc-looks-to-impress-with-dbtl-at-vadnagar-pm-modis-birthplace/99/#sthash.WP47uflJ.dpuf