26mn LPG lines may be axed by December-end

The petroleum ministry and three state-owned oil marketing firms have identified 26 million subsidised LPG connections that run the risk of being disconnected in the next three months. Anupama Airy & Aloke Tikku report.

Homes that have more than one subsidised cooking gas (liquefied petroleum gas) connection need to watch out. The petroleum ministry and three state-owned oil marketing firms have identified 26 million subsidised LPG connections that run the risk of being disconnected in the next three months.

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“Currently, there are around 145 million LPG consumers in India, out of which 26 million are multiple connections... these need to be physically verified and classified as genuine or deleted,” a senior PMO official told HT.

The PMO has set a December-end deadline for oil companies to complete this exercise.

Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum have already stepped up work on eliminating multiple connections.

Officials said the only way households can retain multiple connections is by declaring that subsidy will not be claimed for the additional connection.

Oil companies call this the non-subsidised, non-domestic exempted category (NDEC).

“We are looking at blocking subsidised LPG connections under two categories — intercompany and intracompany,” said M Nene, director (marketing) at Indian Oil.

This, he explained, includes more than one subsidised LPG connection in the same name and address but from two different companies (Indane, Bharat Gas or HP Gas) or under two different names (of spouse or parents or children) at the same address and from the same company.

“If a household has more than one connection, it needs to demonstrate that these are being used by different families under the know-your-customer (KYC) forms being distributed by the oil companies,” Nene said.

“If this cannot be proved, then all those using more than one subsidised LPG cylinder will have to surrender additional connections.”