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Of the 24.72 crore active LPG domestic customers, just 1.03 crore, or 4 per cent, have responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to voluntarily give up their LPG subsidy.
Surprisingly, it is not Modi’s home State Gujarat, but Arvind Kejriwal’s Delhi where the maximum number of consumers have surrendered their subsidies.
Consumers have the option to switch back to availing subsidised cylinders a year after giving up their subsidies. Perhaps due to this, the number of consumers who have surrendered their subsidies declined to 1.03 crore in December 2018 from 1.04 crore in March 2018.
Data reveal that smaller and comparatively poorer States such as Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur have seen more surrendered subsidies than bigger ones such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
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In Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest number of LPG connections (3.37 crore), just 4 per cent of consumers have given up their subsidies. The numbers stand at 6 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively, in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, with over 2 crore connections each. In Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, too, 3 per cent of consumers have given up their subsidies.
West Bengal, among the top five States in the number of connections, is at the bottom of the chart with 2 per cent of subsidies surrendered. It shares that space with Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand.
In Karnataka, Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan, 5 per cent of LPG consumers have opted out of subsidies, while the number is 4 per cent in Kerala and Telangana.
Reverse trend
According to senior Petroleum Ministry officials, the Centre expected the number of consumers surrendering subsidies to go up with an expansion in the user base. However, the data show a reversal in the trend.
The list of consumers who have given up subsidies does not include those with piped natural gas connections.
The LPG coverage of the country, estimated on the basis of active domestic connections and estimated number of households as on October 1, 2018, is around 88.5 per cent.
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