Mangalore/Bangalore, May 10: Come October 1, having an Aadhaar card may no longer be an option for LPG consumers, as the subsidy for the cooking gas would be directly credited to the bank accounts of the consumers!
This follows a Central government decision to link the bank accounts of gas consumers with their Aadhaar card number and directly transfer the subsidy to the consumers’ bank accounts. Which means, the consumer would have to buy the cylinder at the non-subsidized rate from the dealer?
While giving details of the move, district collector Vikas Deskmukh said the decision was taken at a high-level meeting, chaired by the finance minister . Instead of the subsidized price of Rs 450, the consumer would have to shell out Rs 900 to buy the cylinder from the dealer from October 1, he had said. “The difference in price would then be credited to the bank account of the consumer that would be linked to his/her Aadhaar card number,” Deshmukh said.
Rates will vary in different cities, depending on local sales tax or VAT.
There are more than 24 lakh gas consumers in the district, with all the three major oil companies, viz Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, supplying cylinders to the consumers. Of the three Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum have the highest share of consumers.
Post this decision last year, every consumer is now entitled to nine subsidized cylinders per year.
Speaking about the present initiative, Deshmukh said the onus would be on the oil companies and vicariously on the gas agencies to link the consumer’s Aadhaar number and the bank account number.
“The gas agencies would be collecting information from their consumers about their Aadhaar card and bank account numbers. Once these numbers are received, the gas agencies would link them to their consumer id,” he said.
The subsidy amount would reflect in the bank account of every consumer at the beginning of the month. If, however, a consumer does not have an Aadhaar number till October 1, he would have to wait till his Aadhaar card is issued and his backlog subsidy would be credited to his account in a single go.
This marks the second phase of linking government subsidizes with the Aadhaar card in the district. An initiative to link scholarships with the Aadhaar numbers had earlier faced many difficulties.
Source: IE
