By Rajeev Jayaswal & Dheeraj Tiwari, ET Bureau | 1 Aug, 2013,
The scheme requires bank accounts of the customers, the aadhaar identity and the consumer number at the gas agency to be linked in a common database.
The scheme requires bank accounts of the customers, the aadhaar identity and the consumer number at the gas agency to be linked in a common database.
NEW DELHI: The government's ambitious direct cash subsidy scheme has made sluggish progress in the 19 districts where it has been launched, with state oil firms and banks blaming each other for lack of coordination that is necessary to transfer subsidy to consumers.
The scheme requires bank accounts of the customers, the aadhaar identity and the consumer number at the gas agency to be linked in a common database to ensure proper transfer of money to the appropriate beneficiary. This process has been completed for only 40% of the 72 lakh customers in these districts. The rest of the customers may be denied any subsidy after one month when gas cylinders would be sold only at market rates in these districts.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to review the progress of the scheme on Monday before the UPA government launches it in the rest of the country. "Depending on the success of the pilot project in 19 districts and preparedness of other districts, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) could expend the scheme to other districts later this month," a senior government official said.
According to a recent survey, only 28% of the 30,000 people in 19 districts were in a position to receive direct cash subsidy to their accounts, government officials said. "The delay is mainly due to callous attitude of banks," an executive of a state-run oil company said.
State-run bank executives in turn blamed oil companies for the delay. "Oil marketing companies have so far given us only 12 lakh applications of cooking gas consumers, which is 18% of the total population in the 19 districts. All of those have been processed," an executive director of a state-run bank said requesting anonymity. "Through our own initiative, we have linked bank accounts of another 22% of the population. But it is the responsibility of the oil marketing companies and their gas agencies to provide us consumers details," the bank executive said.
But, oil companies blamed banks for lacking standardised procedure across the 19 districts. "In certain banks, seedings (linkages between aadhaar-enabled gas consumer numbers with bank accounts) are happening at headquarters while others are doing it at the branch level, an oil firm executive involved in the execution of the project said.
