Petroleum Minister M. Veerappa Moily Wednesday launched an all-India cooking gas (LPG) connections portability scheme across oil marketing companies (OMCs) and distributors which will allow consumers a choice from among a cluster of LPG distributors.

"Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M. Veerappa Moily has approved the launch of portability of LPG connections from today onwards across oil marketing companies/ distributors," an oil ministry statement said here.

The scheme covering 480 districts in the country "covers all possible LPG markets which have multiple LPG distributors of various ratings", it added.

With this, an LPG consumer can now choose the distributor within a cluster of LPG distributors in the vicinity of his or her premises.

"The OMCs have made more than 1,400 clusters distributors in over 480 districts with an average of almost four distributors per cluster to choose from," the statement said. Details of these clusters have been posted on the OMC websites.

According to the ministry, the portability scheme now covers all possible markets that have distributors of multiple companies.

"The success of this scheme lies in conferring the power with the consumer to be able to change the distributor and the oil company, which forces the distributor and oil company to perform," the ministry said.

A pilot LPG connection portability was launched in October 2013 in 24 districts covering 13 states, with the limited option of changing only dealers, not the oil company.

The OMCs - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum - together deliver over three million cylinders daily.