For the benefit of lakhs of households, the Central government has launched a modified Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme in 54 districts in 11 states including all in Kerala starting November 15, 2014 whereby LPG consumers who have not yet availed the benefit will be able to get cash subsidy amount transferred into their accounts to buy Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders at market price.
Every time they book a cylinder the government will transfer Rs 568 to the customers’ bank account so that the money would be there in the account before gas reaches their homes. Each household is entitled to get 12 subsidized cylinders a year. So those who have already exhausted the quota will not be get any subsidy this year.
This scheme will be implemented in the rest of India on January 1, 2015. Post implementation of this scheme India’s LPG subsidy burden of Rs 48,000 crore is expected to come down by 15 per cent.
“Consumers who had joined the scheme earlier and had received cash subsidy permanent advance of Rs 435 in their bank accounts do not need to do anything further. To confirm this, they should check their CTC (cash transfer compliant) status on www.MyLPG.in,” said George Paul, Executive Director (LPG), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd while briefing journalists on the new scheme.
Under this scheme consumers who do not have Aadhaar number, can receive cash directly in their bank account without producing Aadhaar. However, as and when they get Aadhaar they need to shift to Aadhaar based cash transfer.
“Consumers who are not CTC will get a three month grace period during which they would receive the cylinders at subsidised rate. After this, they will get an additional three month as parking period during which they will have to buy cylinders at the market rate. If the consumer joins the scheme within the parking period, the subsidy as per entitlement and consumption during parking period will be transferred to the bank account,” Mr Paul said.
Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil and Hindustan Petroleum have urged all LPG customers to immediately join the scheme and their dealers have been asked to help customers in case of need.
The scheme will cover 2.33 crore households in the first phase. The customers who have already given Aadhaar number to the LPG distributor but not to the bank are required to link their Aadhaar numbers with their banks immediately. The balance LPG consumers who have not given their Aadhaar number to LPG distributor or to banks must give their Aadhaar number to both if they have it.
If they don’t have Aadhaar number, they need to give their bank account details to the Oil Marketing Company distributor or in the alternative they can give their 17 digit LPG ID to their banks if they are accepting it.
The Aadhaar linked DBTL scheme was launched on June 1, 2013 and finally covered 291 districts. The government has comprehensively reviewed the scheme and after examining the difficulties faced by the consumer substantively modified the scheme prior to the launch.
