Have piped gas in kitchen? Surrender your cylinders

If you have piped cooking gas in your kitchen, you will have to surrender your gas cylinder connection or risk losing both, as dual gas connections lead to the government subsidising your kitchen fuel twice.

If you have piped cooking gas in your kitchen, you will have to surrender your gas cylinder connection or risk losing both, as dual gas connections lead to the government subsidising your kitchen fuel twice.

HT Image

All the major cities and cosmopolitan areas, such as Delhi, the national capital region, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Kanpur and Lucknow, have piped natural gas (PNG) networks. There are plans to cover 200 more cities by 2015.

The move is part of the efforts to control the huge subsidy outgo on LPG.

In 2010-11 alone, the subsidy paid on 125 million households stood at R22,000 crore.

The government has asked all PNG supplying agencies, such as Indraprastha Gas in Delhi, Mahanagar Gas in Mumbai and the state-owned oil marketing companies, to be strict with those who have dual connections.

A senior official of the petroleum and natural gas ministry told HT: “It has been agreed that the oil companies and PNG firms will jointly launch a drive to identify dual users.”

“We have been using piped gas for the last three years. It’s actually economical, as the rate is calculated according to the actual usage,” said Nisha Shekhar, a resident of Sarita Vihar. “But at times you do need a gas cylinder as a contingency measure.”

In such a case, households should buy the cylinder at the market rate of R650 per cylinder against the subsidised price of R345, the official said.He said gas supplies, however, would not be cut abruptly. "Sufficient time will be given for surrendering LPG connections."

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With inputs from Atul Mathur in New Delhi