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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked banks and industrial houses, along with their employees, to give up LPG subsidies to benefit poor families.
Addressing a delegation of bankers and RBI officials, Modi said, “I believe that our banks should take all their employees into confidence. Every bank and industrial house should resolve that their employees and they will give up the LPG subsidy.”
Of late, Modi has been asking well-off people to surrender their LPG subsidy and said that without any formal directive on any platform, about two lakh consumers have already surrendered their subsidy. There are about 15.3 crore LPG consumers in the country.
The Prime Minister said that the Centre’s intention is not to add to its coffers by saving on the subsidy bill, but to provide LPG cylinders, which provide clean energy, to poor households who use firewood for cooking.
“Give up voluntarily. If one crore people give up this gas cylinder subsidy... one crore poor families who burn firewood, which leads to deforestation, carbon emission (and) their children growing up in smoke... The cylinder (subsidy) you give up should reach the house of the poor,” he said.
Modi also said that Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has brought transparency in cooking gas subsidy besides curbing leakages, with the help of banks, technology and political will.
Under the DBT, the subsidy amount is directly credited into the bank accounts of consumers even as they pay the full amount for an LPG cylinder at the time of purchase. At present, consumers are entitled to 12 refills of 14.2-kg cylinders or 34 refills of 5-kg bottles in a year, at subsidised rates.
So far, the government has saved ₹8,000 crore due to subsidy transfer through DBT.
The Tatas have urged employees to voluntarily give up the use of subsidised LPG. “In keeping with that tradition of supporting the national interest, Tata companies are requesting those employees who can afford to do so to consider whether they may wish to voluntarily give up the use of subsidised LPG,” the Tata Group said.
In the 2015-16 Budget estimates, the petroleum subsidy has been halved to ₹30,000 crore. Of this, ₹22,000 crore has been earmarked for the LPG subsidy. The rest is for kerosene.
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