Bank account number mandatory for LPG subsidy, says minister

Consumers are required to mandatorily submit their bank account numbers to their LPG distributors before March 31 to avail themselves of subsidy on gas cylinders, Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Dinesh Gundu Rao has said.

However, providing the Aadhaar number is not compulsory, but desirable, the minister said during a meeting with LPG dealers on Friday.

The distributors complained to the minister that banks were not responding properly to the implementation of the direct benefit transfer for LPG (DBTL) scheme, under which the subsidy component for cylinders is transferred to the bank accounts of consumers.

Chiefs of oil companies, LPG distributors and officers attended the meeting.As per the rules, Aadhaar numbers of consumers must be linked to bank accounts and LPG consumer numbers. A large number of consumers have linked their LPG numbers to Aadhaar. However, banks are not co-operating, said Capt B L Lingaraju, senior vice president, All India LPG Distributors’ Federation. 

Lingaraju said 53 per cent of consumers had linked their consumer number with Aadhaar and 41 per cent had linked their Aadhaar numbers with bank accounts. The subsidy component could be transferred only when the numbers are equal, he said. Even consumers were not taking it seriously, he said. With three months left to meet the deadline, they are neither approaching banks nor distributors. The Food and Civil Supplies Department must create awareness in this regard, he said. When the minister drew the attention of the gathering to the complaints regarding the distributors insisting on producing Aadhaar numbers, S Varadachari, General Manager (Karnataka), Indian Oil Corporation, said Aadhaar was not mandatory for getting the subsidy benefit. But in the days to come, the Centre may make it mandatory. Hence, the government is encouraging the use of Aadhaar number to the DBTL scheme.

He also instructed the distributors not to insist on Aadhaar numbers. Aadhaar numbers could be linked online. Some banks have created such a facility, he said. Distributors should take consumers into confidence and implement the new rule without causing them any inconvenience, he said.

Later speaking to the media, he said that till Aadhaar number, bank account number and LPG consumer numbers are linked, subsidised cylinders would not be made available to consumers. To overcome certain problems, meetings would be held with bank representatives at the district level in March first week, he said. Nearly four lakh BPL families do not have LPG connection in Bengaluru City and rural. In the first phase, 15,000 families will get connections on a first-come-first-served basis. The process of distribution will commence with immediate effect. A family may have to spend a maximum of Rs 1,500 for a connection. 
The minister said the Union government had withdrawn its decision to reduce the quota of kerosene to the State. Below Poverty Line (BPL) families will, therefore, continue to get five litres of kerosene from this month.