With 179 LPG agencies catering to nearly 23 lakh consumers–with most agencies having registered consumers more than the actual guidelines spelt out by the government–very few have been able to benefit from the prime minister’s ambitious direct benefit transfer of LPT (DBTL) scheme or PAHAL_Pratyaksh Hanstantarit Labh. With complaints of missing forms and entries not being redressed due to shortage of staff, consumers seem to be at the receiving end even after submitting their forms on time. At present, Pune district stands at 84 per cent DBTL linkage. With agencies having more than 20,000-30,000 consumers, the latter has been facing a harrowing time as they have not been able to link their bank account to the agency due to the chaos. The government rules cites a limited 12,000-13,000 consumers per agency. Praful, a consumer who stood in line for a good three hours to submit his form for the linkage, was later told that his form had been misplaced and he would have to fill the form again. He was not even getting his LPG cylinders on the basis of non-linkage. “While consumers are doing their bit, the agencies have to put in extra staff and ensure that the forms are safe. Most of the agencies have a huge number of consumers and they are hardly able to cater to all of them, citing paucity of staff,’’ said Meera Vasu, a home-maker who too faced a similar situation with an agency in Yerwada. [related-post] While the agencies have been citing huge workload, oil companies on their part are shifting consumers to new agencies who have applied to them to reduce the number of consumers with one agency. While there are cases of some old agencies shutting down, following which nearby agencies take on the added consumers, there are also cases where oil companies forcefully shift consumers to new agencies so that consumers are given all the “benefits”. However, this too has drawn ire from consumers, who without their knowledge have to deal with a new agency and which at times are far from their residence. “I was dealing with one agency and suddenly when I went to submit my form for linkage I was sent to another agency which is five kms away from my previous one,” said a consumer. Agencies on their front justified that despite repeated reminders to consumers to link their gas number with their banks, “people are yet to wake up”. “The consumers were to do so by March. In case they don’t do it, they will have to do without the subsidy. However, it is in March that people rush to us. There is bound to be some chaos but it is being sorted out,’’ said an agency dealer. Oil companies on their part feel that there was a need for more agencies so that consumers were evenly spread with dealers. “We are looking for more dealers. As and when more agencies are set up, the 10,000-13,000 consumers per agency norm can be adhered to,’’ said officials from the oil companies.
