More than 4.2 lakh consumers have opted for transferring their cooking gas connections to their preferred or required LPG distributors, according to data shared by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

The transfers were made under the online portability scheme initiated in 2013. “Portability option for transfer of LPG connection was launched across the country in 2013. Subsequently, the process of online transfer of connection within same market was made fully automatic for the transfers within the same Oil Marketing Company (OMC),” Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

“OMCs have reported that the complaints pertaining to portability scheme are resolved immediately and there are nil established cases of complaints on portability,” Pradhan added.

The maximum portability requests have come from West Bengal with 1,09,783 requests. This is followed by Rajasthan with 59,066 requests and Uttar Pradesh with 46,017 transfer requests. In response to another question, Pradhan said that the nationwide sale of LPG by OMCs during 2018-19 stood at 21.73 million tonnes. The highest LPG consumption was in Uttar Pradesh at 3.02 million tonne, followed by Maharashtra with 2.45 million tonne and Tamil Nadu with 1.74 million tonne.

Responding to a query on the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), Pradhan said that OMCs have released 7.23 crore new LPG connections under the scheme till June 19, 2019 from the date of its launch in August 2015. “OMCs have reported that till May 2019, 1.67 crore and 1.45 crore PMUY beneficiaries have purchased the refilled LPG cylinders 4 and 5 times respectively,” he added.

With 1,30,81,084 disbursals, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of PMUY beneficiaries. West Bengal comes second with 80,66,899 new connection disbursals and Bihar has the third highest number of PMUY connections at 79,29,510.

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