You may soon be allowed only a single LPG connection

The safety net of having an additional liquid petroleum gas connection...

The safety net of having an additional liquid petroleum gas LPI connection for that rainy day may not last long. The Government plans to allow a household to have only a single LPI connection. A single connection that provides two cylinders, however, will not be touched. The change would be brought in by amending the LPI Regulation of Supply 038; Distribution Order, 2000, to reduce the multiplicity of LPI connections in different consumers8217; names in the same household.

To ensure that consumers do not take advantage of connections across companies, all the three marketing PSUs 8212; IOL including IBP, Bharat Petroleum and HPCL 8212; have already undertaken an exercise to reduce the number of multiple connections and are currently in the process of data reconciliation.

The Planning Commission8217;s proposal to have income-tax payers fork out Rs 480 for an LPG cylinder against the existing subsidised price of Rs 295 and restrict the number of cylinders to eight a year for non-taxpayers, has not found many takers within the Government.

Instead of a sudden hike of Rs 180 a cylinder for PAN cardholders, the petroleum ministry has proposed a moderate increase for all users. 8220;The Planning Commission8217;s suggestion to limit the number of cylinders for non-income-tax paying consumers is not feasible. There will be implementation problems and, further, there are many non-income-tax paying consumers who may not have been covered in the tax net, though eligible,8221; said a note prepared by the petroleum ministry on targeting of subsidies on domestic LPG.

A senior oil company official said, as of December 10, 2007, Indian Oil has already identified around 27.9 lakh consumers with multiple connections and has blocked 4.3 lakh multiple connections. Similarly, HPCL has identified 59.4 lakh consumers of which 1.02 lakh connections have been blocked.

In the case of BPCL, of the 4.6 lakh consumers identified, around 3,000 connections stand blocked. These will be formally disconnected after verification and integration of data.

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