New Delhi: Taking a U-turn on LPG prices, the government has withdrawn its decision to raise cooking gas LPG prices by Rs 4 per cylinder every month.According to sources in the public sector Hindustan Petroleum, the price of the LPG cylinders has not been increased in accordance with the government policy since October.
There has been increase in price of subsidised LPG even after October mainly because of taxation issues, the sources said.The taxation issue arose after implementation of the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme in which consumers are paid subsidy amount directly in their bank accounts, which is supposed to be used to buy market-priced LPG.
The government last year had ordered the public sector oil marketing companies to raise domestic cooking gas (LPG) prices by Rs 4 per cylinder every month beginning June 2016.Cooking gas price has been hiked by Rs 76.5 in 19 installments in 17 months. State-owned oil marketing companies since July last year revised price of LPG on 1st of every month.The monthly price hike decision was aimed at eliminating subsidies contrary to the government decision to provide free cooking gas connections to poor under Ujjwala scheme.
Every household is entitled to 12 cylinders of 14.2 kg each at subsidised rates in a year. Any requirement beyond that is to be purchased at market price. There are as many as 18.11 crore customers of subsidised LPG in the country.These include over 3 crore poor women who were given free connections during the last one year under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. (UNI)
