Only 4% of LPG users give up subsidy on PM Modi's request

About 4% of cooking gas users have responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to give up the LPG subsidy, but this proportion varies widely between states. Northeastern states lead the chart with 14% of customers in Mizoram surrendering their subsidy 12% in Nagaland and 10% in Manipur. Outside this region, the only state or UT where the proportion exceeds 10% is Delhi with 12%.

In March 2015, Modi had appealed to well-to-do sections to voluntarily give up the LPG subsidy, saying this would enable the government to benefit more of the poor. Of India’s big states, only Maharashtra at 6% has a rate of surrender higher than 5%.

Among the other big states, Karnataka, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Punjab all saw 5% of consumers surrendering the subsidy. In Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh it was 4%, in Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu 3% while in West Bengal it was barely 2% and in Andhra Pradesh an even lower 1%. Even in the PM’s home state, Gujarat, only 4% surrendered the subsidy.


The number of people surrendering LPG subsidy had crossed 1 cr in 2016, but since then only another 4 lakh customers have surrendered the subsidy in two years. A senior petroleum ministry official told TOI that the government expects the number of customers surrendering subsidy to go up as the customer base expands. He added that the figure of over 1 cr customers who have surrendered subsidy does not include those who have shifted to piped natural gas and hence are not using subsidized LPG cylinders.

There are 26 crore LPG customers, of which 25.7 crore are in the domestic category, but nly 21.9 cr of these are active customers. About 44.4% of domestic customers have double bottle connections. LPG coverage estimated on the basis of active domestic connections is around 79.2% of all households.

CIL to raise supply to PSU power units in summer
In order to avoid power shortages in the summer, the coal ministry has written to the Coal India (CIL) chairman for special supply arrangements for Central and state-owned generation companies. The power and coal ministries had already started regulating coal supply to non-power sectors.

“It has been reported that power generation in the month of April 2018 has been more than the programmed generation and this, in turn, may lead to a more-than-anticipated increase in demand for coal from the power sector,” the coal ministry letter to the CIL chairman stated. It has suggested an out-of-turn coal allotment to Central and state PSU power companies to meet demand.

Independent power producers (IPPs) criticised the order, saying that prioritising PSU-run power projects created hurdles for coal-starved power projects. IPPs say the move will take a toll on an already ailing sector. Sources in CIL said the regulation of coal supply to non-power sectors and IPPs, including captive power plants, is largely due to a logistics problem and not unavailability of coal.