In a move to make its services more user-friendly, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has decided to go the tech way in Delhi, as it introduced a new facility that allows one to book gas cylinders via an SMS to the local distributor.

Addressing the chronic woe of agencies not picking up calls or phones running engaged for hours, IOC has allotted all 90 distributors of Indane gas cylinders in the city with a dedicated mobile number for reserving gas cylinders.

These handsets which are connected to the computers through Bluetooth ensures of an automated text reply containing the waiting list number following a request for cylinder.

According to the IOC, customers in turn have to file a letter mentioning one or two mobile numbers from which they will send the SMS. And the SMS should be having the customer number prefixing B with a space.

The SMS bookings made after office hours will get saved in the mobile and the reply would be dispatched on the next working day

Currently, around 400 bookings are made with each of the distributors in the city.