NEW DELHI: When Guriqbal Singh Dhillon of Ludhiana sent a mail to complain about delay in transfer of cash subsidy for cooking gas into his bank account, he expected a routine ‘sarkari’ reply —if at all. On Monday, however, he was in for a surprise. Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan himself called up to ask about his problem and seek feedback on the revamped direct benefit transfer scheme, rechristened ‘Pahal’.

“Dhillonji, have you received your subsidy amount yet? You have now? Fine. But rest assured we are sorting out any teething trouble that a new system can develop. How do you find the new scheme otherwise?” executives from state fuel retailers, who were present at Pradhan’s session to review the scheme, quoted him as asking.

“It feels good when I see a minister personally monitoring things. Before Pradhanji, a joint secretary spoke to me. I received a reply within a day of my message,” Dhillon told TOI over phone.

It transpired that the gas connection is in the name of Jeevan Kaur, Dhillon’s mother. The subsidy amount was sent to the bank but did not go through due to activation problem or some technical issue. But Pradhan was not satisfied. He asked officials and executives from state fuel retailers to simplify the system and have options of Hindi and regional languages in the LPG portal— mylpg.in — for the benfit of consumers in the hinterland.

Petroleum secretary Saurabh Chandra said the form for availing the subsidy scheme has already been simplified into one page from four earlier. The forms are available in English and Hindi.

Ever since the limited launch of the revamped scheme in October, Pradhan has been monitoring the implementation closely. He has held several rounds of video-conferencing with field executives from state retailers to get feedback on problem areas and ways to make it easier for consumers.