MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM | 23/10/2015 06:21 PM
Irrespective of the Petroleum Ministry's inflated claims, during FY2015, actual consumption of subsidised LPG cylinders increased by 18% while the same for unsubsidised refill fell 19%. Even the government's so-called saving claim contains simple arithmetical error of Rs1,205 crore
The Central Government, especially the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG), while patting itself for saving thousands of crores due to its direct benefit transfer (DBTL or PAHAL) scheme, continues to show misleading figures. So much so, the clarification issued by the Ministry too contains arithmetical mistake. Not only this, according to the data available in public domain, contrary to the Ministry's claims, actual consumption of subsidised LPG cylinders has gone up by 18% during FY2014-15.
In a release on 12 October 2015, the MoPNG had said, "If we take into account the quota of 12 cylinders per consumer and the average LPG subsidy of Rs336 per cylinder for the year 2014-15, estimated savings in LPG subsidy due to the blocking of 3.34 crore accounts work out to Rs14,672 crore, during that year."