TNN | Jan 4, 2015, 04.47AM IST
As part of the MDBTL scheme, the cash subsidy is deposited in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, who will buy the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders at market prices.
KOLHAPUR: The district administration has set a deadline of March 31 for LPG customers to have their Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts linked for receiving cash subsidy under the Modified Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (MDBTL) scheme.
In case the customers do not have an Aadhaar number, they can still receive the subsidy provided their bank accounts and LPG consumer numbers are linked.
As part of the MDBTL scheme, the cash subsidy is deposited in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries, who will buy the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders at market prices.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had launched the scheme in 2013, which could not move forward as planned, however, as it was made mandatory for consumers to link their Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts. The scheme has since been modified and renamed PAHAL or 'Pratyaksh Hanstantarit Labh'.
The scheme now allows those who have not received their Aadhaar cards but have registered for the same to provide proof of their registration and have their accounts linked. The cash will then be transferred to the accounts of the beneficiaries a week after they buy the cylinders.
In the district so far, only 35.66% of LPG customers have linked their accounts under the scheme that started from January 1. There are about 23 gas agencies in the district, where Aadhaar enrolment counters have been set up.
District supply officer (DSO) Vivek Agavane, said, "We have called the meetings with all the stakeholders of the scheme - officials of banks and LPG suppliers - to speed up the process of linking accounts."
If a customer wants to go for the online process, the customers has to log on either to the website of the petroleum ministry (http:www.petroleum.nic.in) or that of the district administration (http:/Kolhapur.inc.in) for linking the Aadhaar number and the bank account.
On the petroleum ministry's website, customers can enter their Aadhaar numbers along with their LPG consumer numbers for linking. Customers who do not have an Aadhaar number can either furnish their bank account information - including name, account number and IFSC code - to their LPG distributors, or give their 17-digit LPG consumer numbers to the bank.
Of the total number of LPG connection holders in the district, 30.19% have linked their Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts, while only 5.47% of them have linked their LPG consumer numbers with their bank accounts.
"We are going to complete the linking of the accounts before March 31. The Aadhar enrolment is underway and we will cover the LPG connection holders on the priority basis," said a district official on the condition of anonymity.
In Nashik district last week, LPG distributors were accused of cancelling the bookings of customers who had not submitted their bank account or Aadhaar numbers for the direct benefit transfer scheme.
The distributors were not only cancelling the customers' bookings, but were also claiming that it was done on the customers' request. District Supply Officer (DSO) Dnyaneshwar Jawanjal said the distributors had no right to cancel the delivery orders unless the customers were not at their residences as mentioned in the blue book (LPG book).
"The distributors cannot cancel orders in any case and they cannot do so on their own. More importantly, the consumer has no choice of cancelling the delivery of a cylinder after booking it. So what the distributors are saying is invalid," the official had said, promising to look into the matter.
The district supply office and sales officers of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) companies later asked distributors not to cancel the refill orders of customers for non-compliance with the requirements of the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme.
"After going through the complaints about wrong methods of coercing consumers to present their papers by arbitrarily cancelling the refill cylinder orders, we have asked officers of the companies to look into the case and stop such moves at once and ensure that no orders were cancelled," district supply officer Dnyanesh Jawanjal said.
There were instances of refill orders of several LPG consumers being cancelled arbitrarily by the distributors. "There is no room for a customer to request cancellation of a refill order. Yet, the messages generated by the respective LPG companies to the customers were that the 'order was cancelled as per your request'. This means that the customer had applied for cancellation of the order. This is a lie," said Vandana Sonawane, a resident of Nashik Road who received the message.
Jawanjal said the message was brought to the notice of the LPG companies, which went through it and confirmed the fact. "There were some distributors who had sent such messages for want of papers that the customers had not sent to them. But since there were no such orders to cancel the refill orders, we have asked the companies to monitor and take action against all the erring distributors," he added.
The company officials also said they have asked the distributors from refraining to using the clause unless any customer had genuinely refused to take the delivery.
