The territorial administration has decided not to accept the Union Government’s proposal to implement direct benefit transfer (DBT) for kerosene subsidies to beneficiaries in the Union Territory.
Instead, the government plans to approach the Centre for inclusion under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana so that the current kerosene consumers could be given LPG connections, highly placed sources in Government said.
In place of DBT for kerosene, the administration has decided to approach the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for inclusion under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme, an ambitious programme launched by the National Democratic Alliance last year for supply of deposit free LPG connections to women from BPL households.
The territory was not included under the ambit of the scheme as PMUY was targeted at places where LPG penetration was below 65 per cent.
A senior official said the UT has a LPG penetration of around 95 per cent and hence the region was not included. “We have decided to seek exemption after declaring ourselves kerosene free,” the official said.
Under PMUY scheme, the Centre planned to provide five crore subsidised LPG connections to women of poor households in the next three years.
Subsequently, the Centre had approached the administration to initiate direct cash transfers of kerosene subsidies to beneficiaries. The DBT for kerosene was conceived as a way to address the issue of leakages and solve the issue of mis-directing the actual beneficiary.
Under the proposed plan, the consumer would be required to pay the full unsubsidised amount of kerosene while purchasing it from the Public Distribution System (PDS) outlets.
Subsequently, the subsidy amount, which comes to around ₹7 to ₹10 per litre, would be directly deposited in the beneficiaries account.
The government, according to a senior official, believes that implementing the scheme “won’t be politically prudent as the subsidy amount was considered to be meagre”.
“It’s a just a small amount. So the cabinet decided not to accept the scheme,” a senior bureaucrat told The Hindu .
As of now, the Civil Supplies Department provides 6 litres of kerosene to Below Poverty Line cardholders who do not have an LPG connection. Those with one LPG connection were being provided 1 litre of kerosene, according to an official with the Civil Supplies Department.
Around 40,000 people in the UT procure kerosene from PDS outlets mainly for cooking purpose, the official added.
