All household LPG consumers will continue to receive subsidy even if not linked to the Adhaar card, a top oil company official said in Kolkata on Saturday.
“All consumers irrespective whether seeded with Adhaar card or not will continue to get LPG subsidy,” Oil Corporation executive director Andrajit Bose told PTI in Kolkata.
He said that apprehension that subsidy for those not having the card would be discontinued from today was not true.
However, the current system of subsidised LPG cylinders for non-Adhaar linked consumers would be valid only for the next three months, he said.
Indian Oil was the co-ordinator for all oil PSUs in West Bengal. Therefore, there was no reason for apprehension for HP Gas and BP Gas consumers also, he said.
An advertisement by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the day’s dailies on linking LPG subsidy to Adhaar card for Kolkata, Howrah and Coochbehar districts with immediate effect, created panic among LPG consumers here.
West Bengal Chief Minister expressed shock and pointed out that only between 15 to 20 per cent of consumers had received Adhaar cards so far.
The IOC official said that customers who had already linked or seeded their card number with the LPG distributor and banks for cash transfer, would be mandatorily migrated to the new system.
In other words, linked consumers would buy cylinders at the market rate and the subsidy would be transferred to their bank accounts directly.
Moreover, government would transfer an average subsidy for LPG in advance to the bank account when the consumer booked it for the first time in the new system.
Customers would continue to get subsidies at the time of delivery for nine cylinders in a year.
