The Centre claims it would end up saving nearly Rs. 22,000 crore in the financial years of 2014-15 and 2015-16 since launching its two-pronged approach on cooking gas subsidy – introducing direct bank transfers of the subsidy and asking better off consumers to voluntarily give up theirs.
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A CAG report to be tabled in Parliament shortly, will seriously throw into question the Narendra Modi government’s claims that it will save about ₹22,000 crores in the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16 through its “GiveItUp” cooking gas subsidy campaign, the Hindu reported. However, according to CAG audit as reported by The Hindu, the savings through LPG subsidy was only Rs 2,000 crore while a little less than Rs 20,000 crore took place because of the dip in global oil prices. According to the audit, the remaining savings come from the steep drop in the price of the cooking gas India imports, The Hindu reported. “Why doesn’t he just tell the truth?”
The government introduced direct bank transfers as part of its DBTL scheme launched in 2014, which includes transferring the cooking gas subsidy directly into citizens’ bank accounts, and asking high-income earners to voluntarily surrender their subsidies.
As many as 3.34 crore duplicate/fake/ghost/inactive domestic LPG connections were identified as a result of elaborate exercise to identify actual users and link their bank accounts for transfer of subsidy.
Through the GiveItUp campaign, the government urged the well-to-do consumers to not avail the subsidy so that it will help the government save on the outgo.
Before DBT for LPG, all or many of these 3.34 crore consumers would have continued to purchase subsidised cylinders. Similarly, the savings estimate for 2015-16 is Rs 6,443 crore. The audit found issues with the transfer scheme, such as subsidy for domestic consumption being used for commercial use and vice versa. “As a result of implementation of DBT for LPG (or PAHAL) mechanism, it became possible to block these 3.34 crore LPG connnections as the subsidy was transferred in the accounts of only those consumers who had registered and who have been cleared after de-duplication exercise”, a statement from the Oil Ministry read.
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Taking a cue from the claimed success of the programme, the government is now planning to extend the DBT scheme to kerosene (DBTK).
