As the Centre has substantially reduced the kerosene quota for Tamil Nadu, the government is not able to make adequate distribution to cardholders, Food and Civil Supplies Minister R. Kamaraj told the Assembly on Monday.
Responding to a special calling attention motion, the Minister said that for the period April to June, the Centre reduced the quarterly allocation to 39,429 kilolitres from 44,572 kilolitres. “This is only 60.53 per cent of the total requirement, which is 65.140 kilo litre, and the government is not able to meet the consumers' requirement.”
Mr. Kamaraj said that the current quota for consumers in the State was 10 litres for cardholders in corporations and district headquarters, six litres in municipalities, five litres in town panchayats and three litres in village panchayats.
To overcome the situation, the Minister said that the government started eliminating cardholders who had one or two gas cylinders and between June 2011 and February 2012, it could save 1,560 kilolitres.
“The government is issuing tokens to the cardholders when there is no stock. These cardholders are given priority in the next month. Thus the government is ensuring that all cardholders are getting their quota,” the Minister said. Congress member N.R. Rangarajan said that the Centre could have reduced the quota because it was also releasing gas cylinders to customers.
