Srinagar, Nov 16: Government of India Friday extended the deadline for submission of Know Your Consumer (KYC) forms till November 30. Earlier the government had fixed November 15 as the deadline for consumers to get their LPG documents verified. But in the wake of mounting pressure from cooking gas consumers, the Union Oil Ministry Friday extended the deadline by another 15 days.
“Union Oil ministry has extended the deadline for submission of KYC forms by 15 days. If we are not able to register all the consumers till November end, the state government will further seek extension of deadline,” Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) Qamar Ali Akhoon told Greater Kashmir.
Pertinently, going through the KYC formalities is meant to weed out consumers with multiple gas connections and to complete the verification thereof.
To mention, this is the second extension granted by the Government for state-run fuel retailers to complete the KYC process. The retailers started the exercise in August after the government modified the LPG control order. The exercise was to end by October 30.
After the Centre in September capped the supply of subsidized cylinders to six a year per household, the cooking gas dealers were swamped by consumers rushing in to fill the KYC forms. Following consumer complaints in completing the process, the deadline was extended to November 15.
An official of Oil Company said only those consumers who have multiple connections need to follow the process.
Meanwhile All Kashmir Gas Distributors Association has urged the Union Oil Ministry to extend the deadline for submission of KYC forms till March 2013.
“There are still thousands of consumers whose connections are yet to be updated. So it would be better if we are given till March to get the KYC formalities done,” said Abdul Hamid, Secretary of the Association.
Pertinently, the oil firms are implementing the policy of 'one household, one connection' and have asked consumers to voluntarily give up additional connections. Multiple LPG connections in the 'same name and at the same address' as well as 'husband and wife' owning connections at the same address would be summarily disconnected.
In case of multiple connections at same address under different names, distributors have been asked to collect KYC forms to verify genuine users.
An official said the transfer of LPG connection to family members would be permitted, subject to certain conditions. Also, transfer of LPG connections to legal heir in case of death of consumers would henceforth be done through a self-declaration by the next of kin and death certificate. Previously, legal heir/succession certificate was required.

‘MORE GAS AGENCIES TO COME UP’
In the wake of prevailing LPG crisis in J&K, the state government Friday said it would on “fast track basis” increase the number of gas dealers in the state to mitigate the problems of common people.
“State government has expedited the process of opening up of new gas agencies at all places so that people don’t face any inconvenience,” Akhoon told Greater Kashmir.
“For hassle-free distribution of cooking gas and registration/verification of consumers we need more gas agencies than we have at present,” he said, admitting that the present situation has arisen due to less number of LPG dealers in the valley.
Pertinently, the restricted number of LPG dealers, who allegedly monopolize the supply of cooking gas in the Valley, is in fact the major contributory factor to the problem haunting the consumers here.
Surprisingly, there are only 43 gas dealers operating in the Valley while as per norms there should have been around 1700 distributors in the state to cater to the requirement of 10 lakh LPG consumers.
 As per the current dealer-consumer ratio, every dealer in the valley on an average caters to around 23,000 consumers while as per norms a dealer has to cater to 600 consumers.
Asked why government failed to increase the number of gas dealers, Akhoon said: “Few of the gas agency owners have got Court stays granted. It has barred the state government and Oil companies for increasing the number of gas distributors and opening up new agencies.”
He however said the government is in process of getting the stays vacated “and in few days we will overcome all the legal impediments.”
Meanwhile Akhoon expressed his condolence to the family members of Ghulam Mohiuddin Shah who died on Thursday due to cardiac attack while waiting in a queue outside the gas agency at Karan Nagar.
“It is an unfortunate incident that took place. People have to wait for hours outside the offices of gas agency which is very sad. The only solution is to increase the dealership in the state so that people don’t suffer,” he said.

PTI ADDS
After a few weeks of hiatus, state-owned oil companies have resumed issuing new subsidised cooking gas (LPG) connections, beginning with North Eastern states.
In September, issue of new LPG connections had been put on hold pending a massive nationwide exercise to eliminate users having multiple connections at the same address.
The three oil PSUs have now started releasing new LPG connections in Meghalaya, Sikkim, Nagaland and Andaman & Nicobar Islands, said Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest fuel retailer.
Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura will follow suit shortly. New connections would be released in other states once the exercise to eliminate duplicate connections is completed.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:00:00 IST