 "India saved Rs 15,000 crore on cooking gas subsidy through DBTL: Modi")
India saved Rs 15,000 crore of annual subsidy outgo on cooking gas thanks to the roll out of the Direct Benefit Transfer in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (DBTL) scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day address. He also announced that the count of the number of consumers who have voluntarily surrendered LPG subsidy has crossed 2 million.
“We got the LPG gas subsidy under direct cash benefit transfer. We used the Jan Dhan Yojana and Aadhar cards. Because of this, middlemen and black marketers have been hit. We corrected the system and Rs 15,000 crore, which was stolen every year in the name of gas subsidy, has been saved," Modi said, addressing the nation from the Red Fort.
The enrolment of beneficiaries under the ambitious modified DBTL scheme has stopped at 139.2 million people, oil ministry data shows. This translates into annual subsidy savings for the government to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore at the current prices that was linked to the rest at around 40 million customers. These include mostly fake accounts and people who have voluntarily surrendered subsidy or lack bank accounts.
Business Standard was the first to report in May the pace of enrolment under the scheme, touted as the world’s largest cash transfer programme, had slowed down and was likely to stop soon, weeding out over 30 million mostly duplicate accounts. The government had budgeted for a total petroleum subsidy outgo of Rs 30,000 crore in the Union Budget 2015-16, including Rs 22,000 crore for LPG.
The prime minister also said that so far 2 million people had given up their LPG gas subsidy under the "Give it Up" movement. Modi had launched the campaign on 27 March this year when the count of GiveitUp stood at 280,000 with 100 crore savings.