By Express News Service
Published: 26th December 2014 06:02 AM
BHUBANESWAR: As the pace of registration of Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) in the State is not very encouraging, the Government has directed district Collectors to accelerate the process by organising camps at distributors' point.
The Collectors have been asked to spearhead IEC (information, education and Communication) campaign to educate consumers about the need to link their bank accounts with LPG consumer numbers for transfer of subsidy amount to their accounts.
"Camps may be organised in the premises of LPG distributors on holidays for enrolment under DBTL. Adequate publicity about the scheme should be made so that not a single LPG consumer is left behind to avail benefit of the scheme," Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Secretary MS Padhi said in a letter to the Collectors.
While the State has about 25 lakh LPG consumers, only 19 per cent consumers have bank-Aadhaar seeding (linking the bank account with Aadhaar number).
As head of district level DBTL implementation committee, the Collectors have been asked to review the status of seeding on a weekly basis with all key stakeholders including officials of oil marketing companies, banks and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
As the modified direct benefit transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme is proposed to be implemented across the State from January 1, 2015, the consumers are required to be cash transfer compliant (CTC) to receive their subsidy in their bank accounts, Padhi said.
As per the decision of the Centre, the process of linking banks accounts with LPG consumer numbers has to be completed by March 31, 2015.
Linking Aadhaar to bank account is not mandatory. If consumers do not have the Aadhaar number, they could link their bank accounts to their LPG ID at the earliest because cylinders will be available at market rate from April 1.
Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan has asked the oil marketing companies and bankers to enrol at least two per cent LPG consumers under DBTL per day.