LPG cylinder cap up, Aadhaar in disarray

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday decided to allow 12 subsidized cooking gas cylinders to households, removing the annual nine-cylinder cap, besides putting on hold subsidy payments directly into bank accounts — a move that deals a crippling blow to the UPA's much-touted Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer scheme.

The scheme was supposed to be a game-changer for the Congress in the lead-up to the elections and help the government check leakages from the subsidy schemes. But Thursday's cabinet decision prompted by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's public demand has virtually put a question mark on the ambitious subsidy trimming programme.

Thursday's decision will reduce the size of the DBT scheme by two-thirds as the government had made transfers worth Rs 908 crore between January and October 14, 2013 of which close to Rs 615 crore was on account of cooking gas subsidy, latest data available publicly showed. It also revealed that in terms of the number of transfers, 80% of the transfers during this period were on account of gas subsidy to households. So far, DBT for cooking gas has been rolled out in close to 300 districts.

Although the original intent was to move the three main subsidies — food, fertilizer and fuel — that together cost almost Rs 2.5 lakh crore a year and scores of other schemes into direct cash transfer mode, the UPA leadership kept trimming the list which originally listed over 50 programmes. Food subsidies were the first to be struck off the list as the public distribution system is run by state governments. Fertilizer was excluded as the government said it did not have a list of beneficiaries since the dole was routed through companies. Even within fuel subsidy, kerosene was excluded as the government decided to focus on cooking gas sold in cylinders.

On the last count, there were 29 schemes, including cooking gas subsidy, of which 28 involved an outgo of Rs 294 crore during the first nine-and-a-half months of its launch. There were at least three schemes where there were no cash transfers, while nine others saw transfers running into a few lakhs.

Oil ministry officials did not comment on what prompted them to delink subsidy payments from Aadhaar but a government official said that there is a minuscule proportion of households that consumes more than a dozen cylinders a year.

Defending Aadhaar, a Unique Identification Authority of India official said the ID card scheme has not been junked and the number assigned to each individual will still be used to verify the customer base and do away with duplication of gas connections. "It is being used for other purposes such as payment of scholarships, which remain unaffected. In any case it serves as an identity proof. It is wrong to assume that it's the end of the road for Aadhaar card," the official said.