Rs 5 discount on online payment of LPG cylinder

State-owned fuel retailers, Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) will offer "an upfront discount of Rs 5 on every LPG refill to all LPG customers who will book and pay for it online," an official statement said.

To provide cash-less transactions, the government had asked oil companies to pay consumers 0.75 per cent discount on cashless fuelling of petrol and diesel at petrol pumps.

This has now been extended to cooking gas (LPG).

"Customers can make payment through existing online modes i.e net banking, credit and debit cards at the time of web-booking their refills," the statement said.

On doing so, customers will get the discounted amount displayed on their screens. This net amount payable will be retail selling price minus incentive amount of Rs 5 per cylinder.

"The net discounted amount will also be shown on the cash memo accompanying the home-delivery of the LPG cylinder," it said.

A subsidised LPG cylinder of 14.2-kg currently costs Rs 434.71 in Delhi. A non-subsidised bottle of similar size, which consumer not having a subsidised connection buy, costs Rs 585. Even for the subsidised users, they will have to buy non-subsidised LPG cylinder after exhausting their quota of 12 bottles at sub-market rates.

The oil firms offer a 0.75 per cent discount on the price of petrol and diesel to consumers paying by cards or mobile wallets to push people towards digital payments in the face of a severe cash crunch brought in by the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Such discount is credited to customer's account by way of 'cash back' within maximum three working days.

Petrol currently costs Rs 70.60 a litre in Delhi and the discount translates into 53 paisa. Similarly, on the price of Rs 57.82 for diesel, the discount comes to 43 paisa per litre.

Stating that the discounts are aimed to encourage consumers to increasingly shift to digital payment modes to achieve the objective of no-cash or less-cash based transactions, the statement said, "The incentive will encourage more and more LPG consumers to go for cashless mode transactions.