By Express News Service
Published: 17th December 2015 04:42 AM
BENGALURU: Indian Oil Corporation on Wednesday declared 60 villages in the state as ‘smokeless’ with 100 per cent LPG penetration.
Panchayat Development Officers, who declared their villages as ‘smokeless village’, handed over a symbolic certificate to S Varadachari, General Manager, in-charge, Karnataka, Indian Oil.
“Indian Oil is committed to improving lives of people in the communities that it operates in,” Varadachari told reporters.
According to an officer, out of 120 villages in the country that are declared smokeless by the corporation, 60 are in Karnataka and they have set a target of 250 smokeless villages in the state by the end of the current financial year.
Indrajit Bose, ED (CC & Branding), said, “In India, over four million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels. Indoor air pollution is a major health hazard in our country... This mission aims to address this health need of our country,” he said.
The initiative has a double benefit, wherein the villagers would now be bank account holders and their LPG subsidy would go to their bank accounts, in addition to improving their health, said Abhijit Dey, DGM (LPG), Karnataka. Vychakurahalli in Gauribidanur taluk, Chikballapur district, about 77 km from Bengaluru, was the first village that was chosen under the project.
Over 3.68 Lakh Give Up LPG Subsidy
Across Karnataka, 3,68,544 consumers have given up LPG subsidy as on Monday. Out of that, 1,73,115 are Indane customers.
The total LPG customer population in Karnataka is 114.45 lakhs as of October 1 this year and 6.29 lakh connections have been released so far during 2015-16.
Consumers joining the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme PAHAL will have to either link their Aadhaar number to their bank account and their LPG consumer or if they do not possess Aadhaar number, they will have to link their bank account directly with their 17 digit LPG number. Once a consumer joins the scheme, he will get the cylinders at market price and will receive LPG subsidy directly in his bank account.