The Government has come up with a big measure that would allow the consumers to choose or change their cooking gas dealer at just press of a button. That will end the monopoly enjoyed by the gas agencies that harass the common people. In addition, the consumers can now avail the LPG cylinders of 5kg at non-subsidised rate at retail petrol pump outlets.

The 5-kg LPG cylinders will be available at company-owned-company-operated (COCO) petrol pumps. However, their number is just 3 per cent of the total petrol pumps in the country. While consumers can avail LPG cylinders through their regular gas dealers at subsidised rate, which stand at 9 per family in a year, the new scheme will mostly benefit the students, private sector employees, IT professionals and BPO employees. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum together have 1,440 COCO pumps all over the country. In total, they have 47,000 petrol pumps across India.

Oil Minister Veerappa Moily has launched the sale of 5-kg cylinders in Bangalore on October 5. Initially, the sale will be restricted to COCO petrol pumps in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru. Later, it will be expanded to 25 other cities, including Hyderabad, Vizag, Patna, Raipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Faridabad, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Hubli, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhopal, Indore, Pune, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Coimbatore, Lucknow, Kanpur and Dehradun.