During FY22, about 2.11 crore domestic consumers of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) did not take any refill. This accounts for around 7 per cent of the total 30.53 crore consumers (as on April 1, 2022), Parliament was informed on Thursday.

The total domestic LPG consumers across the country stood at 30.95 crore as of July 1, this year.

“During FY22, 2.11 crore domestic customers did not take any refill. Consumption of domestic LPG by households depends on factors such as food habits, household size, cooking habits, price, easy availability of free firewood and cow dung, etc,” Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas Rameswar Teli said in a written response to a query in Lok Sabha.

Pricing

Domestic LPG prices are based on Saudi Contract Price (CP), the benchmark for international prices of LPG, and the government continues to modulate the effective price to consumer for domestic LPG. However, Piped Natural Gas (PNG) prices are fixed by the City Gas Distribution (CGD) entities, he added.

Consumption

In a separate question in Lok Sabha, the Minister informed that the cumulative domestic LPG consumption stood at 140.93 crore in FY22. Similarly, during FY21, FY20 and FY19, the total refills stood at 156.76 crore, 143.92 crore and 132.63 crore, respectively.

The per capita consumption of PMUY beneficiaries also increased from 3.01 in FY20 to 3.66 in FY22, he said.

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) was launched in 2016 to provide deposit free LPG connections to women members of poor households and the target to provide 8 crore LPG connections under the Scheme was achieved in 2019.

PMUY Phase II

Further, under Phase-II of PMUY (Ujjwala 2.0), in addition to deposit free LPG connections, all PMUY beneficiaries are provided free first refill and stove as well.

As on July 1, 2022, the oil marketing companies (OMCs) have released 1.35 crore LPG connections under Ujjwala 2.0. Besides, the government has announced a targeted subsidy of ₹200 per 14.2 kg cylinder for Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries for up to 12 refills a year for the year 2022-23.

comment COMMENT NOW