COIMBATORE: What’s in a name? Money, honey. That’s what LPG consumers who have changed their names since the time they took their gas connection will tell you now.
Also Read: |
Consumers who had taken a gas connection in their birth names and subsequently changed their names have been caught in a tight spot, because to avail the Direct Benefit of Transfer for LPG (DBTL) in their bank accounts, they have to go in for a new LPG connection.
A mismatch in the names in the LPG passbooks and the bank passbooks disqualifies them from the DBTL scheme that is set to roll out nationwide from January 1 next year.
Rathinamani alias Radha Thiagarajan, a resident of Ram Nagar in Coimbatore, has learnt this the hard way. “I had taken a gas connection from Hindustan Petroleum 30 years ago in the name of Radha, as my family members used to call me. Those days, it was enough to provide just the proof of address to get the gas connection. But now, when I applied for DBTL registration, I realised that the subsidy will not be credited to my bank account, which stands in my birth name Rathinamani,” she said.
To avail of the subsidy, Rathinamani has been asked by her gas agency staff to surrender her gas connection and subscribe for a new one under her birth name.
In Chennai, some consumers find that their names have been erroneously spelt in the gas passbooks. This has been more so in the case of names that phonetically sound the same irrespective of the spelling, like Samy and Swamy.
“All these years I did not notice that the spelling of name ‘Dorai’ has been wrongly entered as ‘Durai’. My bank account has the right spelling. I’m wondering if this will be overlooked and the DBTL subsidy credited in my bank account,” said an Anna Nagar resident.