Karnataka and Ration cards and LPG

Update 4: (Dated 3rd August 2011)

‘The Hindu’ carries an article today about the LPG confusion and asking consumers not to panic. The deadline for submitting LPG documents and the RR number has been extended upto 4th August 2011 (Thursday). The Department of Civil Supplies is considering to extend the deadline beyond August 4th. You can upload your documents here – http://web1.kar.nic.in/fcslpg1/

As always, do let us know in the comments below whether uploading the documents worked…

Update 3: (dated 25th July 2011)

Consumers can check the status of their connection on the website of the department of food and civil supplies

You can leave in the comments whether this worked or not so that it can help others… 🙂

Update 2: (Dated 9th Feb 2011): The Karnataka Government has issued a notice today that the last date for submitting documents has been extended to 19th February 2011. All you have to do is submit a copy of your ration card and electricity bill to your LPG agency. If you do not have a ration card, you can submit a copy of electricity bill with the LPG Consumer number written on it. The Government has warned that if documents aren’t submitted as required, there is a possibility of disconnecting your LPG connection and even cancellation of your ration card (if you have one, that is…)

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UPDATE 1: (dated 5th Feb 2011) Today I visited the lpg agencies and the good news is all you have to submit is a copy of your electricity bill with the consumer number of your lpg connection written on it. It took a maximum of 5 minutes at each lpg agency. A clear example of the government order gone wrong…

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If you are staying in Karnataka and you have a ration card, I am sure you are familiar with the confusion and controversy surrounding the latest Government order.

This is what the problem is. Sometime last month, the Government of Karnataka had asked all APL (Above Poverty Line) Ration card holders to submit a copy of their ration card and Electricity Bill to their LPG agency. The rationale behind this is to weed out duplicate APL ration cards in the state. This is where the confusion starts. What if you do not hold a ration card? My family doesn’t have a ration card. AFAIK, we last had a card, nearly 8 years back, when my parents were in Port Blair. When we relocated to Coimbatore after that, we lost documents for the transfer of the card and nobody bothered to get it renewed again.

The Government has clarified that you can use a copy of your electricity bill if you do not hold a ration card.

So, all you have to do is, take your latest electricity bill, note down your LPG consumer number on that bill and submit it to your LPG agency. But then I have been seeing the queue of anxious people lined up there to submit the documents. Two days back the Government came back and mentioned that you can upload the scanned copies through a website – http://web5.kar.nic.in/fcslpg/main.aspx.

The problem with uploading it to the website is, the scanned copies of the documents must be within 100kb (jpeg/gif). Whatever method I used, I couldn’t get to reduced the size of the scanned copy. Alternatively, you can send the documents by post/ registered post to the following address:

Commissioner
Food & Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Dept
No 8, Marketing Federation Building
Cunningham Road
Bangalore – 560052

or fax it to 080-22372204 (not sure whether the fax works. got this from another source).

I also came across a Gas Verification Declaration form. Not sure whether this needs to be submitted alongwith. Itz your call.

Gas Verification Form