Aadhaar enrolment is not mandatory for availing oneself of domestic LPG cylinder.
Though the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Amendment Order 2011 states that furnishing of Aadhaar number for each member of the household in notified areas is mandatory for LPG connections, a senior official of an oil marketing company said that the Union Government has not yet notified any area in the country for Aadhaar enrolment.
So, LPG consumers without Aadhaar numbers will not be denied refill as of now, the official said.
“So far, no area has been notified for this in the country. Notified areas will be the ones where Aadhaar enrolment has exceeded 80 per cent of the population. Though Aadhaar enrolment had exceeded 90 per cent in Mysore, it is not yet notified,” the official said.
Once, any area is notified, the head of the household in the notified area having an LPG connection should furnish the Aadhaar number of each member of the household within three months of the date of the notification, the official said, citing the order.
The Government is seeking to distribute domestic gas cylinders under the Aadhaar platform to prevent diversion of subsidised LPG for other purposes and ensure that the subsidy reaches the intended beneficiary.
However, during a recent meeting of the Task Force of the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, a decision was taken to provide consumers the option of refusing subsidy. Such customers can buy a cylinder at the market price.
During the first phase of the pilot project encompassing the jurisdiction of three distributors, 70,000 consumers were covered.
“Of these, only 50,000 consumers were active. When the drive was launched, about 35,000 consumers responded. Of the 35,000, Aadhaar numbers were provided by about 20,400 of which 17,100 were validated. “Though initially, in January 2012, the success rate of delivery under the Aadhaar platform was 64 per cent, it reached 93 per cent by May 2012,” the official said.
