Consumers can now make online payment for the cooking gas or LPG cylinders at the time of booking.

This facility was launched on Sunday by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

"Launched 'Online payment facility' for LPG refill to bring consumer convenience, transparency & cashless transaction," Pradhan tweeted.

Earlier, only online booking facility was available for customers of oil marketing companies (OMCs) namely Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum and consumers were required to pay cash to vendor on delivery of cylinders.

"PSU OMCs have now introduced the online payment facility for consumers at the time of booking their LPG refill cylinder so that they need not worry about leaving cash with their family members or attendants while taking delivery of the cylinder," an official statement said.

This facility would bring great relief to the working couple as well as to senior citizens as they can make the payment online without bothering to keep adequate cash at home, it added.

The payment facility can be availed at www.mylpg.in which can be accessed in 13 Indian languages.

The OMCs have already implemented the refill booking facilities on IVRS, Web and SMS, portability of Gas connection, direct benefit transfer of subsidy for LPG to the bank account of consumers.

The minister also said that he has asked OMCs to offer easy instalment scheme for new LPG connection, open 10,000 new distributors in 2016 and add 10 crore new consumers by 2018 on the occasion.