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Two months after introduction of the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme for cooking gas subsidy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would review its implementation in 19 districts on Thursday. The meeting would decide the course for extending the scheme to 177 more districts by December.
According to the plan of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, of the 177 districts planned by December, the project would be rolled out in 31 more districts by October 1, 53 more by November 1 and the remaining 93 by December 1. “It is upon the Prime Minister to take a final call on this,” a senior official said. Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily had reviewed the scheme on July 16. “We have been able to complete 2.28 million transactions, touching the lives of 1.25-million liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) households amounting to Rs 91 crore,” Moily had said after the review.
The scheme covers 7.2 million consumers, 600 distributors, and 19 districts across the country. On August 1, the scheme would be launched in one more district.
Recently, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had indicated all LPG consumers would get the subsidy in their bank accounts through DBT by the end of the year. The ministry is aiming to improve the LPG seeding to 80 per cent from the current 68 per cent. On the other hand, bank seeding is turning out to be a major hurdle, with only 38 per cent achievement.
After the meeting, Moily had asked petroleum ministry officials to visit all districts to understand the work in progress.
To increase the seeding level, oil marketing companies have devised a reward mechanism to incentivise the LPG dealers to do the seeding in LPG database expeditiously. Moily also urged all the stake-holders to work towards improving seeding.
The 19 districts involved in the first phase covered states and Union territories like Andhra Pradesh, Daman and Diu, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Sikkim and Tripura.
Under the programme, the government directly credits subsidy into the bank account of consumers. Oil marketing companies are paid the market rate for cylinders. The direct cash transfer on LPG and kerosene is expected to save Rs 15,000 crore on subsidy. The National Payments Corporation of India and State Bank of India are in charge of disbursement of money to customers’ account.
