Idea Cellular have entered into a long-term agreement for servicing over 82 million LPG consumers of ‘Indane’. As part of the agreement, Idea will extend its ‘Smart Gas Solution’ service to enable end-to-end automation on refill delivery process of IOCL. The process starts from initiating booking request, billing, etc and ends with delivery of LPG cylinder with regular updates to consumers, across the country.

Covering over 82 million consumers and over 7,000 distributors delivering more than 1.5 million LPG cylinders everyday, Idea’s ‘Smart Gas Solution’ service agreement with IOCL, for a period of two years, is one of the largest IVR Deployment by a telecom operator, in recent times. The service allows Indane consumers to book LPG 24×7 and offers IVR and SMS based delivery status updates, without having to visit the distributor‘s outlet.Presently, the service is launched in 45 cities and would be progressively rolled out across India in the next three months.

Presently, the service is launched in 45 cities and would be progressively rolled out across India in the next three months.

Idea Cellular Smart Gas Solution How it works:

Traditionally, LPG bookings were done through appointed Distributors, and customers were required to call up distributor or personally visit, to book gas. This system was plagued with inefficiencies and arbitrariness because of complete control resting with the distributor. Also, due to subsidies on LPG, there was risk of distribution malpractices. Whereas the customer faced inconveniences such as continuously busy Telephone Lines, restricted calling time and calls not being answered, the LPG companies were faced with several other challenges such as Refill cylinders meant for household supply being diverted to commercial market, leading to artificial shortage, and lack of insightful and authentic MIS.

Idea’s LPG Booking System, ‘Smart Gas Solution’, has addressed these inherent inefficiencies and reduced the scope of malpractices. Idea’s end-to-end technology based Booking and Billing system have reduced distributors’ role to only refill delivery while shifting entire refill booking under the LPG company’s direct control.