By Vikas Dhoot, ET Bureau | 3 Feb, 2014, 04.12AM IST
NEW DELHI: Two days before the Cabinet put the Aadhaar-based direct benefits transfer regime for LPG cylinders on hold, a parliamentary panel led by a Congress MP had put the government in the dock for the inconveniences the scheme was causing to the poor.
The Estimates Committee chaired by South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha had almost unanimously called for scrapping the direct benefits transfer scheme for LPG cylinders at its meeting on January 27.
This was the second time in a week that the committee was reviewing the scheme with petroleum and natural gas ministry officials. "We had been receiving a lot of complaints from people since the DBT scheme for LPG started. Even for the poor with Aadhaar numbers, the DBT scheme required them to pay the full price for a cylinder first and then wait for the subsidy to reach their bank accounts. The poor simply can't afford this," Estimates Committee chairman Francisco Sardinha told ET.
The estimates committee is mandated to suggest alternative policies for improving administrative efficiencies while reviewing departments' financial estimates, but is also empowered to examine matters of special interest which may arise in the course of its work. Though Sardinha didn't share details of the Estimates panel's deliberations, two other MPs confirmed that Congress as well as Opposition party MPs were in favour of scrapping the DBT scheme for LPG cylinders.
The criticism of the DBT scheme was echoed by several ministers including Defence Minister AK Antony and Food minister KV Thomas at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs (CCPA) on January 30, where the annual quota of subsidized LPG cylinders was raised from nine to twelve per household and the Aadhar linkage was suspended. The ministers had flagged the same concern as the Estimates Panel chief that it is difficult for the poor to fork out the full price of a cylinder upfront and wait for the subsidy, when the matter was debated over a two and a half hour meeting of the CCPA.
The Cabinet Committee on the Unique Identification programme, under which Aadhaar numbers are being allotted to people on the basis of their biometric details, was also slated to meet on Thursday to consider a proposal by the Nandan Nilekani-led Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI to begin enrollments in the Hindi heartland states of UP, Bihar, Chhatisgarh and Uttarakhand in order to expedite the rollout of DBTs ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
However, after the CCPA's decision to put the DBT scheme for LPG cylinders — the biggest end-use of the Aadhaar platform so far — on hold, the meeting of the cabinet panel on UID was deferred.
The Prime Minister-led panel is now scheduled to meet on February 4 to consider UIDAI's proposal, though the CCPA's decision has blunted its arguments to some extent.
The UIDAI has proposed to start enrollments in these four states, citing the slow pace of enrollments in these states for the National Population Register, a resident identification programme being operated by the Census Commissioner's office under the home ministry.
As per an earlier cabinet decision, states were divided between the UIDAI and NPR for biometric enrollment purposes and the Hindi heartland states were allotted to the home ministry.
When the CCUID meets on February 4, the finance ministry may express reservations about duplication of expenditure on enrollment in these states and the home ministry is expected to point out that it has already signed contracts with service providers to conduct the enrollment exercise. While Nilekani was unavailable for comment, a senior government official close to the UIDAI dismissed speculation that the authority's proposal is weakened in light of the CCPA decision. "Aadhaar is a platform for multiple applications.
Direct Benefits Transfer for LPG cylinders is just one of those applications," the official said. Apart from the PM, four members in the cabinet's UID panel are also part of the CCPA, which decided to appoint a committee to suggest how to take the DBT scheme for LPG cylinders forward - NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, law and telecom minister Kapil Sibal and Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
The panel also includes rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, with Nilekani and Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia as special invitees. Sardinha welcomed the cabinet's decision to raise the number of subsidized cylinders and revert to the old system of subsidising oil marketing companies.
"Almost every MP present at the meeting was stridently critical of the scheme, citing the experiences from their own constituencies. We also questioned the ministry about the basis on which six and nine cylinders were considered enough for poor households, without factoring in the number of members in a family," said another Congress MP who is a member of the Estimates Committee, requesting anonymity. "People living as joint families have had to split their ration cards in order to get enough LPG cylinders.
Ministry officials claimed that their research showed that no poor family consumed more than nine cylinders a year, but a few MPs countered by asking if they had also studied how much firewood was used," said the second MP
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