Subsidy on LPG for the Common Man in India.
We are now in the middle of a debate where everyone is reacting
to the recent announcement by the Central Government to limit the number of the
LPG Cylinders available to the ordinary LPG Consumer up to a maximum limit of
Six for the coming financial year. The numbers have been decided after looking
into the cost-consumption of an average consumer spread all over the country.
This is a valid debate and we all must participate in this as this will have an
effect on all of us.
The question of providing LPG Cylinders to the average
consumers is closely related to the following areas of concern while we deiced
as to what should be the pattern of consumptions. The points related to the
consumption are
1.
Consumers residing in the urban or sub-urban
areas have been the main beneficiaries of these subsidized LPG Cylinders. The
monthly or bimonthly quota of the rural and remotely residing consumers has
been on an average 4 to 5 LPG Cylinders per year. Domestic fuel is supplemented
by other carbon-fuels like coal, charcoal, fuel-wood , cow-dung cakes and petro
kerosene oil. Very few cases of bio-gases, solar cookers, electric-heaters and diesel
generated stoves are also seen.
2.
The Distributors, Dealers, Stockists and Vendors
of the LPG cylinders survive on the black-marketing of the LPG Cylinders that
are booked in the names of all the consumers registered with them at their
respective stocking point and they are sold to anyone who wants them at a
premium rates, without any kinds of paper-documents and at whatever frequency
the buyer may demand.
3.
The domestic categories of LPG cylinders reaches
the commercial consumers like eateries, bakeries, industries, Hotels, etc.
which prohibits the usage.
4.
The domestic LPG cylinders are purchased by the
consumers themselves but they themselves sell these LPG- cylinders in the black
markets. Several efforts to contain these loopholes at the consumer level has
been discarded finally by the Oil Companies.
5.
The periodic sample checks at the live-end usage
of LPG Cylinder by the Oil Companies have been very tardy, biased against the
rural consumers and full of monitoring loopholes.
6.
The rates of the LPG differ by the point of
delivery, Bottling Point and transport expenses for which no Bills / receipts
are provided to the consumers;
7.
Agencies have made many dummy consumers based
upon the actual paper documents procured through the middle-man who broker
black marketing,
8.
The procedure of the Right to Information Act is
seldom followed by the Oil Companies, their dealers , Staff Members and
Agencies registered for Booking –cum-delivery system .
If there is such a vast quantity of pilferage what are the
possible solutions ?
I suggest the following steps –
1.
The consumer should book all the LPG Cylinder
and purchase all the quota assigned to her for a given period of time. The
Consumer must update her information online and the booking , intimation of
arrival of Stock, Rate at the point of delivery and the time for wait at the
Stock yard should be done online. We must remember that the Stock , etc. is
mainly in the urban centers and the services online can easily be accessed
through SMS, Mobile-Net and Phone Calls. The consumers should be asked to
purchase the LPG Cylinder within let us say a week’s time after which that
offer must automatically be passed on to the others in the wait-listed
consumers. This procedure may be similar to the Railway Ticket Booking System .
2.
The good number of LPG Gas Filling Stations
should be allowed to be opened in every City which may have more than three-
lakhs of population. The location should be closer and very near to the Big Cities, National Highways and
Major Tourist Destinations. These locations may be targeted in the first phase
of expansions of the Gas Filling Stations. Black marketing should be
discouraged by making the Motor-Gas readily available in the bigger cities.
3.
The price-rate difference between the commercial
and domestic LPG Cylinder should be reduced further and may become same, so
that the commercial consumers do not hunt for domestic variety. The gap of the
prices can be compensated by indirect taxes or levies on the establishment
itself.
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LPG Aplenty , where is the Subsidy ?
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4.
The monitoring of the LPG Cylinder Suppliers
should be done by making all the information online. The local administration
can easily monitor the demand –supply gap if the information about the LPG Sale
is available to them. The manual reporting System should be stopped at all the
levels. The SMS Based Information sharing with the Consumer should be started
for all the Oil Companies. The franchisee and Dealership System will not cater
to the need of the LPG Cylinder.
5.
Compliance to the Right to Information should be
made mandatory for all the participants in this System. The vendors, Dealers
and the Stockist do not share the information with the Consumers despite
repeated efforts by the Civil- Societies, Consumer Courts and Aware Consumers.
The Government of India will have to make the rules very strict in this regard.
6.
The
delivery of the LPG Cylinder at the doorstep of the Consumer and Safe
local transportation of LPG Cylinders must be made compulsory for all the Oil
Companies.
