DC | N. Vamsi Srinivas | 4 hours 35 min ago
Hyderabad: Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday gave a firm assurance that the Centre would extend the February 15 deadline for LPG consumers to submit their Aadhaar numbers to avail the subsidy through the cash transfer scheme.
Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy asked people not to panic and directed officials to open 200 more centres for enrolling Aadhaar applicants. He also wrote to Union petroleum minister Veerappa Moily to extend the deadline.
“The decision (on extending the deadline) could not be taken as the Union minister is on a foreign tour. We have sought extension till June and the Centre will positively extend the deadline,” civil supplies minister D. Sridhar Babu told newspersons.
The state capital and the neighbouring Rangareddy district had recently witne-ssed a mad rush for Aadh-aar enrolments with the Ce-ntre picking the two distr-icts to implement the cash transfer scheme for LPG cylinders on a pilot basis.
The oil companies had been instructed to collect the full price of cylinders from consumers from February 15 and the Centre would deposit the subsidy amount directly to the consumers’ accounts.
Serpentine queues and even stampedes at Aadhaar enrolment centres in several areas in the two districts had come as a shock to state officials especially as the Centre’s decision to implement the pilot project here was mainly because of the extensive coverage the local officials had achieved in Aadhar enrolment.
Enrolments exceed 2011 Census number
Civil supplies minister D. Sridhar Babu said on Tuesday that new applications were being enrolled in large numbers due to constant migration of people to the capital. As per the 2011 census, the population of Hyderabad district was 40,10,238, but 58 lakh people had been enrolled so far and UID had been generated for 48 lakh. “We estimate that seven to eight lakh new applications may come in the next two months,” the minister said.
In Ranga Reddy district, 39,73,000 people enrolled against a population of 52,96,396. Officials generated UID numbers for 28.5 lakh people and 24 lakh are yet to be issued UIDs.
Meanwhile, chief secretary Minnie Mathew has called the Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy collectors and asked them to immediately open new centres.