V Kamalakara Rao, TNN Sep 17, 2013, 02.36AM IST
VISAKHAPATNAM: Several LPG consumers in the Port City are on tenterhooks as the Centre's Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG consumers (DBTL) scheme is scheduled to be launched in Visakhapatnam district on October 1 but many of them don't have Aadhaar cards yet.
Consumers are supposed to have Aadhaar cards to avail of the subsidy on purchasing a domestic LPG cylinder under the DBTL, otherwise they will to cough up the full price of the cylinder. At present, consumers buy a 14kg domestic LPG cylinder for about Rs 400. Once the scheme is implemented, consumers will have to buy the same LPG cylinder for anywhere between Rs 900 to Rs 1000.
The new DBTL makes it compulsory for all the LPG consumers to have Aadhaar number that has to be registered with their respective LPG suppliers and banks to link the LPG consumer number to the Aadhaar card and bank account number to get the subsidy amount directly in the bank account. The government will reimburse the subsidy amount of about Rs 500 to Rs 600 to the consumer through the oil marketing company soon after the completion of the purchase process.
CPM city secretary B Ganga Rao alleged that the DBTL scheme would be greeted with ire by Vizagites as currently nearly 60% of the LPG connection holders do not have Aadhaar cards. He also met joint collector Pravin Kumar on Monday over the same issue.
According to Rao, apart from a slow Aadhaar card enrolment process, some spelling mistakes and other errors have also been found in the Aadhaar cards of some of the LPG consumers, even as many banks are refusing to open zero balance accounts for LPG consumers, which was against the rules of the DBTL.
"We have brought all the problems of the LPG consumers to the notice of the joint collector, who assured us that he would address their appeals by meeting with the officials concerned soon. Moreover, the absence of ground level staff due to the ongoing Samaikyandhra movement is also affecting the progress of Aadhaar enrolment and LPG consumers' arrangements to avail of the DBTL scheme," Ganga Rao told TOI.
However, civil supplies officer of city N Jwala Prakash said the Samaikyandhra movement had not hit the progress of Aadhaar enrolment or DBTL launch for which the department of civil supplies (DCS) was busy making arrangements. While Jwala Prakash said the total population 42.89 lakh in the district had around 8 lakh LPG connections of various players like Hindustan Petroleum, Bharat Gas and Indane, while there are around 5 lakh LPG connections in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) limits alone.
Pointing out that he was not sure as how many of the eight lakh LPG consumers in the district had Aadhaar numbers as on September 16, he said the department would roll out the scheme in the district on October 1 along with Medak and Nellore districts as part of the third phase. "Right now we are not able to tell how many LPG consumers do not have Aadhaar numbers. However, compared with the population, 93% of the enrolment has been done so far in the district. We hope that all the LPG consumers will have Aadhaar numbers by December 2013," he said.
According to DCS reports, of the total 42.89 lakh population of the district, 39,99,142 people have enrolled for Aadhaar. Of these, enrolments of 2,90,883 applicants were rejected, letters for 28,72,127 Aadhaar enrolments were generated, Aadhaar letters of 8,36,132 were yet to be generated and 5,79,854 people were yet to enroll for Aadhaar. In GVMC limits, of the total 18 lakh population 15,83,050 citizens had enrolled for Aadhaar.
