COIMBATORE: Domestic LPG consumers whose names in the gas passbook and bank passbooks do not match have been left wondering on the procedure to be adopted to sync the names to avail of the subsidy under the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG Scheme from January 2015 onwards.
When Express contacted the stakeholders in the LPG sector they came up with conflicting explanations on how to go about a name transfer in cases where the original allottee is alive but needs to change his/her name in the gas passbook.
“Name change is done only in third party transfer cases or death cases. There is no procedure as yet to change the customer’s name if they have an alias,” said B Rajendra, general secretary, All India HP Gas Distributors Association.
According to him, legal heirs of deceased allottees and for third party name transfers, no deposit needs to be paid.
“In other cases, they have to pay a separate deposit,” he said adding that in the case of “surviving allottees” who wish to change their names there is no guideline yet.
On the other hand, Pradeep Nair of Bharat Gas, Coimbatore, said that a customer can produce a KYC (Know Your Customer) form along with necessary proof to initiate a name change. “When the customer submits the form, his/her previous connection will be terminated and a new subscription will be activated immediately.
The customer need not surrender their connection as it is a special case,” he said. An official from Indian Oil Corporation said such customers have to go through the same procedure as getting a new LPG connection. “They have to pay the difference of the current deposit amount and the deposit they paid earlier for the connection as the deposit,” she said.
According to A Preethavalli, president, Indane Distributors Association of Coimbatore, if one has to change from their alias name to the one on the bank documents it can be done by filling a form available with distributors.
“If a person has taken the connection in the shortened form of their name, the link would show an error but we can still consider it eligible for DBTL. In case of those with an alias they need to fill in a different form for us to link it to the DBTL. The customer need not pay another deposit,” she explained.
“However, if a customer initiates the process online only the verification will be pending in the end and that will be taken care of by us. Once we verify we can link it with the bank account,” said Preethavalli.
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