New Delhi: Important news about LPG subsidy is already there. It is reported that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is evaluating the limit to which subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or cooking gas) will be restored. Business Standard quoted a senior official of the ministry as saying that a survey is being done for this.
According to a senior government official who is aware of the matter, a survey is currently being conducted to find out at what price more and more consumers will buy LPG gas cylinders. According to the official, various options are being considered for this. One of these options is to limit any subsidy disbursal to the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries only.
May 2020 LPG subsidy was closed in many areas
In the year 2020, when the worldwide lockdown was imposed due to the coronavirus epidemic, the prices of crude oil fell. This helped the Government of India on the LPG subsidy front as the prices were low and there was no need to change the subsidy. The government had canceled the subsidy on LPG in May 2020. At that time the price of a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder in Delhi was Rs 581.50. At present, its price has reached Rs 884.50.
Know how much subsidy is now
Explain that the subsidy on domestic cylinders is zero in the national capital Delhi, but the Center is still giving subsidies in the form of freight costs in some states. The exact amount of subsidy varies in each case, but it is roughly less than Rs 30. According to media reports, the government is conducting a survey regarding subsidy, from this, it is trying to find out at what rate consumers can buy LPG cylinders. The government wants to keep its prices under control.
Since PMUY beneficiaries are considered to be the most vulnerable financially, an option is being considered to give any new subsidy allocation to them only. The quantum of subsidy to be given and the effective price of the subsidized LPG cylinder will be decided after the results of the survey.
Subsidy on petroleum products reduced to 92%
In the April-July period, there has been a decline of 92% in petroleum product subsidies on an annual basis. Looking at the reason for this, the government has stopped the transfer of subsidy on LPG cylinders to the accounts of lakhs of beneficiaries, despite the huge increase in the price of cooking fuel. In the first 4 months of 2021-22, the petroleum product subsidy was estimated to be at Rs 1,233 crore. Which is less than Rs 16,461 crore of the corresponding period of last year i.e. 2020-21.
LPG subscribers may reach 300 million
It is believed that by March 2022, the number of LPG consumers in the country will be more than 30 crores. Out of these, about 20.7 crore consumers are regular consumers, that is, they are not included in PMUY. At present, all the consumers are not getting any subsidy for filling the cylinder.
