City LPG users must link with Aadhaar or pay full price

With the deadline for the introduction of the Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG subsidy (DBTL) expiring on Tuesday, domestic gas consumers in several cities including Mumbai and Delhi will from today get cash subsidy for buying cooking gas refills directly in their bank accounts.

With the union government and the petroleum ministry silent on any extension of the deadline, those who have failed to seed their Aadhaar number with their LPG consumer ID and their bank account will have to pay the full market price of Rs1,021 per cylinder.

Under the scheme, which till now has been rolled out in 184 districts in 18 states, cooking gas consumers will get Rs435 advance money in their bank accounts, and pay the full price for every 14.2kg LPG cylinder. Currently, the subsidized LPG cylinder costs Rs414.

The moment the refill is bought, the subsidy prevalent on that day will be credited to Aadhaar-linked bank account of LPG consumer for another cylinder. In all, cash subsidy is provided for nine refills in a year under the DBTL scheme.

Official sources said in the last phase of DBTL rollout from Wednesday, 105 districts including nine in Delhi, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Gurgaon in Haryana, Belgaum in Karnataka, Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, Lucknow in UP and Murshidabad in West Bengal would be covered.

So far, 40 million cash transfers to consumer's bank accounts have taken place since the launch of the scheme in June this year. Over Rs2,000 crore have been transfered in 184 districts in 18 states providing direct benefits in hands of the consumers.

The scheme was launched in 20 districts on 1 June and was extended to 34 more on 1 September. Only the consumers in these 54 districts who have linked their LPG consumer number and bank account with the Aadhaar number will get the cash subsidy.