)
Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa urged the Centre to rethink on the proposed Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for LPG and also to put on hold the proposed Phase II roll out of the scheme.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Jayalalithaa said while the state machinery was fully prepared to ensure smooth functioning of direct cash transfer through bank accounts, the full rollout was not possible as banks were not in a position to deliver service at the doorsteps of the beneficiaries due to inadequate number of banking correspondents appointed by them.
The two primary objections raised by her with respect to cash subsidy transfer were the access and timely availability of commodities under the public distribution system, fertiliser subsidy, kerosene subsidy. Without addressing them, monetisation would not serve any purpose, she said.
She noted the Planning Commission had excluded three districts in the state - Ariyalur, Pudukkottai and Tiruchirapalli - from Phase I of the rollout.
The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas informed the state that the second phase of the DBT for LPG scheme was proposed to be implemented in 235 districts in the country, including 25 districts in Tamil Nadu with effect from January 1, 2014. "I would like to place on record my strong opposition to the proposed roll out of DBT for LPG," she said.
The proposed DBT for LPG scheme would amount to replacing a subsidy on the supply of an essential commodity with a cash transfer. LPG is an essential commodity that has to be made available to users in a timely and need-based manner and, in our view, replacing the subsidy with a direct cash transfer is not appropriate.
Unhappy with the ministry's plan to link the DBT for LPG scheme with the Aadhaar number of the LPG customer, she said the proposal was fraught with a number of practical difficulties, including the slow pace of Aadhaar numbers across the country and in Tamil Nadu.
An important reason for this was the confusion created between different ministries in the Centre and the parallel schemes of the National Population Register-based registration, and the Unique Identification Authority of India-based registration in different states. Highlighting the practical delays, she said, so far as against 67.4 million eligible persons in TN, Aadhaar numbers had been issued only to 25.2 million.
Moreover, the DBT for LPG scheme envisages that after a grace period of 3 months, no person who is not an Aadhaar enrollee can receive the subsidy.
