New Delhi, July 13: You will no longer need to take a day off from office to receive your cooking gas cylinder. It will be delivered at a time of your choosing for an extra Rs 25 or Rs 50 — though you are likely to have to wait a few days.

The “preferred time LPG delivery scheme”, launched in Delhi today, will be extended to Calcutta in end-July and will cover the entire country by the end of the year.

Under the scheme, you can be a “preferred time customer”, choosing a particular time slot for cylinder delivery on any day from Monday to Friday. If you miss the delivery by not being at home at the appointed hour, the distributor will deliver the same time next day.

Or you can be a “preferred day and time customer”, selecting a particular time slot on a specific day of the week. If you miss the delivery, you must wait exactly a week.

The third category is that of the “Saturday/Sunday preferred customer”, who receives the cylinder on either of these two days between 8am and 6pm.

Be sure you are at home the entire time slot you have chosen. For, if you are absent on two occasions, your booking will be cancelled and the “preferred” facility withdrawn for six months.

What if you are at home and the distributor fails to deliver? He delivers it on any subsequent day and pays you a fine of Rs 20 apart from forfeiting the Rs 25/50 charge.

The time slots and the (extra) charges in the metros are like this (from Monday to Friday): 8am to 11am (Rs 25); 11am to 3pm (Rs 25); 3pm to 6pm (Rs 25); 6pm to 8pm (Rs 50). There’s a fifth slot, “before 8am”, for which too the charge is Rs 50.

The official versions of the scheme fail to clarify how long “before” 8am the facility will be available. Sources said the gas deliveries were likely to stop after 8pm and resume a little before 8am the following day.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the deliveries will take place only between 8am and 6pm (a single slot) and the charge will be Rs 25.

For all places other than the metros, the charges will be Rs 20 and Rs 40 instead of Rs 25 and Rs 50.

How fast can you expect the cylinder once you make a call? Here lies another catch.

The system is still first-come, first-served; so you will not receive the cylinder out of turn. After your call “matures”, the delivery will be made on the next preferred day and time.

Suppose you are an 8am-11am preferred time customer and have booked your refill on Friday, July 2. However, on that day, your distributor may be delivering cylinders booked by customers on Friday, June 25.

After your call “matures”, say on Tuesday, July 6, you will receive the cylinder on July 6 or 7 between 8am and 11am. However, if you are a preferred day and time customer for the 8am-11am slot on Fridays, you will receive the cylinder only on Friday, July 9.

You must register for the scheme either by filling in a form available with the distributors or by logging into the websites of their respective oil companies. The websites are www.indane.co.in for customers of Indane Gas of Indian Oil Corporation, www.ebharatgas.com for Bharat Gas of Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and www.hindustanpetroleum .com for HP Gas of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.

You can change your day and time of preference after six months.