Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) said on the 16th that a total of 17,729 households received a discount on bills last year through the "application by proxy for city gas rate reduction" program.
Launched by the corporation in July last year, the program is a service in which the corporation directly identifies vulnerable households that have not received rate reductions due to complicated application procedures or lack of information, obtains their consent, and applies to city gas companies on their behalf for a discount.
In the second half of last year, it identified 318,825 vulnerable households left in the blind spot of energy welfare and completed guidance on the program for 128,971 households through a dedicated call center. As a result, a total of 17,729 households newly gained discounted rates.
Each beneficiary household was able to save an annual average of 279,330 won (based on the maximum reduction limit). As of the end of last year, 1.84 million households nationwide received rate reduction benefits.
As the program showed results, it was also selected as a key task in the "expanding social consideration" category among 33 items in the "2025 public institution citizen-experience service improvement plan" that the Ministry of Economy and Finance released last year. It was also chosen as a representative task in the "civil service innovation that changes people's lives" category at the "government innovation best practices competition" hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.
The corporation said, "We plan to further strengthen cooperation with related agencies such as local governments and expand the service," adding, "Going forward, we will build a dense energy welfare network with no blind spots through an artificial intelligence (AI)-based rate reduction system for vulnerable groups."