March 12, 2020
Abir Ranjan Biswas makes a Special Mention on the need to resolve issues related to the PMUY Scheme
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The PMUY scheme of 2016 aims to provide families with a cleaner cooking fuel in the form of LPG. Deposit free LPG connections are to be provided to female members of BPL families as determined by SECC 2011 data. The scheme also provides an optional loan facility to cover the cost of stove and first refill, with the loans to be recovered from subsidies accruing to consumers on LPG refills.
Recently, CAG reports state that encouraging the sustained usage of LPG remains a big challenge. The annual average for PMUY beneficiaries as on 31 December 2018 revealed that refill consumption declined to 3.2 refills per annum from 3.7 in March 2018. Low consumption of refills has also hindered the recovery of outstanding loans of over Rs 1,200 crore. There was a delay of more than 10 days (up to 664 days) in delivering 37 lakh LPG refills against the stipulated delivery period of seven days.
It was further noticed that 14 lakh beneficiaries consumed 3 to 41 refills in a month. Further, IOCL and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) in 3.5 lakh instances issued 2 to 20 refills in a day to a PMUY beneficiary having single bottle cylinder connection. These numbers are highly improbable for personal use and the government must investigate whether subsidized refills are being diverted to commercial use.
I demand that the Government look into the modalities of implementation of this scheme and address glaring discrepancies in order to increase its efficiency and benefit maximum people.
Thank you, Sir.
