The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said on Wednesday that the total savings from elimination of fake/duplicate/ghost connections by implementing Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL) is estimated to be more than ₹21,000 crore for the two financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16.

In a statement, the Ministry said, “This figure is not comparable with the actual expenditure on subsidy, which includes the subsidy on new genuine connections given during these two years. Without the implementation of DBTL (PAHAL), subsidy burden would have been higher than the actual expenditure recorded during these years, even with lower petroleum prices.”

The Ministry said that 3.34-crore fake/duplicate/ghost/inactive connections were removed due to DBTL. “But, for the blocking of these accounts, the subsidy bill would have been much higher despite fall in crude oil prices. If DBT had not been implemented, the outgo on subsidy would have been higher by ₹14,818 crore in 2014-15 and ₹6,443 crore in 2015-16,” the statement added.

Explaining its calculations, the Ministry said that for the financial year 2014-15, 3.34 crore consumers were outside the DBTL net for which ₹369.72 would have been the average subsidy per cylinder for 12 cylinders annually. This would have resulted in ₹14,818 crore of savings. In 2015-16, the Ministry has taken average subsidy per cylinder at ₹150.82.

Further, the Ministry also said that non-subsidised commercial LPG sales have grown 39.3 per cent which is a ‘concrete evidence’ of successful elimination of bogus connections.

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