A parliamentary panel has asked the government not to give subsidised LPG cylinders to the affluent and the influential, including public servants and those holding constitutional posts.
There, however, was no unanimity in denying subsidised LPG to all who have annual income above R6 lakh as one member of the panel found this threshold too low, which would exclude a large number of the people who have neither the intention nor the means of concealing income like ?profit earners?.
The parliamentary standing committee on petroleum and natural gas, in its report for 2010-11, unanimously opposed the oil ministry proposal of restricting the number of subsidised LPG cylinders to four a year to ?all consumers?. Instead, the panel unanimously said that the government could do away with giving subsidised cylinders to the rich and public servants such as MPs and MLAs.
?The committee is of the firm view that such an initiative of the government will help expand its subsidised LPG distribution to the rural people who are more in the need of this clean fuel,? the panel noted. The panel’s report was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.
While agreeing with the panel’s recommendations, Rajya Sabha member Tapan Kumar made a dissent note on the specific proposal to deny subsidised LPG cylinders to those having annual income of more than R6 lakh. In 2010-11, the total subsidy on LPG was R14,257 crore, the panel noted. LPG subsidy has more than doubled from R8,362 crore in 2004-05 to R17,600 crore in the commodity prices boom-and-economic crisis year of 2008-09.