Karnataka's Anila Bhagya scheme violates all guidelines: Centre

The Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Tuesday took objection to the procedure adopted by the Karnataka government to implement the Centrally sponsored free LPG connection distribution to poor households in the state, saying that it violated all guidelines.

Taking exception to the norms announced by the Karnataka government to implement the Mukhya Mantri Anila Bhagya Yojane (MMABY), the Ministry said the state government must implement the MMABY as a complementary scheme of the Centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) only through oil marketing companies such as Bharat Gas, Hindustan Petroleum or Indane and not through LPG distributors network.

Unless the Karnataka government followed the Government of India guidelines, Ministry will not approve it at all, the Ministry said in a statement here. When the Karnataka government asked the Ministry of Petroleum to implement the MMABY, as a complementary scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the Centre advised the state to implement the combined scheme only through public sector oil marketing companies or LPG supplying companies like Bharat Gas, Hindustan Petroleum or Indane on the lines Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam, Punjab and Haryana have implemented.

"Union Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas through number of communications from time to time has requested the state government to implement it through oil marketing companies (OMCs) only. Instead of following the same, the Govt. of Karnataka is unilaterally going ahead with implementation of MMABY directly through distributors' network without involving OMCs."

"Karnataka method of implementation may lead to large scale chaos and implementation issues in the field", the statement said.

"The state government while announcing the current implementation modalities of MMABY has gone back on the earlier agreed commitment in the joint meeting of Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Karnataka Minister of Food and Civil Supplies. Therefore, it is clarified that current format of MMABY not being in line with established procedure and hence is not having concurrence of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas," the Ministry said.

The PMUY was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016 in which free LPG connection will the given without upfront charges. However the Karnataka government promised to give free LPG stove along with free LPG connection and rename it Mukhya Mantri Anila Bhagya Yojane.

While the Karnataka government wanted to tie up with LPG distributors to implement the scheme, the Centre has been objecting it saying that even if the state wanted to give a stove, it should be through oil marketing companies.