Well I’m all for E governance and E commerce but what do you do if you dont have “E” t?

Last month I had a major confrontation with my gas distributor. It seems that the gas is no longer booked at the distributors but has to be booked online directly with the supplier which in my case happens to be Bharat Gas. Now that was another frustrating experience since the gas is registered on my father-in-law’s name and he has given the number of a mobile phone which he has long since discontinued.

I managed to get the cylinder by actually screaming at the distributor , threatening to report her unsupportive customer service to Bharat Gas, the Gas provider. Sadly, this hysterical and completely deplorable behaviour on my part made sure that the gas was delivered to me on the very same day – something that has never happened before.

I quite forgot about updating the customer profile with the Gas Provider till this morning when I had to ask for the gas yet again. This time round I found out that even if I didn’t have a mobile phone, I still had to tell the gas provider that I didn’t have one………so I had to make my father-in-law who is all of 86 go to the Gas Distributor and fill in the requisite form with requisite documents to prove his existence, the authenticity of his request etc etc etc.

All this is something quite intimidating for a consumer who doesn’t have any access to any E equipment. For instance, what if a consumer doesn’t have a computer or a mobile, does that mean he cannot get in touch with the gas company or distributor? And considering that so many middle class and lower middle class homes actually use cooking gas, doesn’t this smack of elitism? Or are we so advanced as an economy that everyone is online ?

This is my 4th post for the Write Tribe September Challenge