Nearly 40 lakh consumers to get Rs 500 LPG cylinders

As per the guidelines issued, the beneficiaries must have both a ration card and also a LPG connection.

Hyderabad: Nearly 40 lakh consumers in Telangana are eligible to obtain LPG cylinders at the subsidised price of Rs.500 under the Maha Lakshmi scheme. While beneficiaries are mandated to have ration cards, only a limited number of cylinders will be supplied to each consumer based on their previous consumption. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy will launch the initiative along with the Gruha Jyothi scheme for free power supply of 200 units to domestic consumers on Tuesday.

As per the guidelines issued, the beneficiaries must have both a ration card and also a LPG connection. Eligible individuals should have already submitted their Praja Palana application.

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There are 1.25 crore LPG connections against over 90 lakh ration cards in Telangana. The Civil Supplies department initially estimated the number of total beneficiaries to be around 65 lakh. But now, fresh estimates have pegged the number at nearly 40 lakh.

Interestingly, this includes around 11.58 lakh beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwal Yojana scheme where the Centre provides a subsidy of Rs.340 per LPG cylinder.

Further, the consumers should pay the entire amount of around Rs.955 upfront. Of this, the subsidy amount of Rs.40 from the Central government and another Rs.415 from the State government, will be reimbursed throught Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) into bank accounts of the consumers.

For beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the State government will reimburse only the excess amount above the Rs.340 subsidy from the Centre and the Rs.500 paid by consumer.

To prevent misuse of the scheme, the Civil Supplies department has mapped all the beneficiaries and decided to restrict the annual number of LPG cylinders supplied under the scheme to the average number of cylinders procured by the customer in the last three years.

“If the consumers purchased an average of five cylinders per annum in last three years, he/she will be eligible to receive five subsidised cylinders. Similarly, those who consumed eight or nine cylinders, will be able to receive an equal number of cylinders,” a top official of the Civil Supplies department told Telangana Today.

An estimated 23 lakh LPG cylinders per month are required for implementation of the scheme. Accordingly, the State government on Saturday released Rs.80 crore towards subsidy reimbursement which will be released to the oil companies which in turn transfer the amount to the beneficiaries.