Hyderabad : The central government is planning to withdraw subsidy on cooking gas for people with annual income of over Rs.10 lakh, union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here on Saturday.
“Why do they need subsidy? Why do the ministers need subsidy?” Naidu, who is minister for urban development and parliamentary affairs, asked at a meeting here.
The minister said 30 lakh people have given up LPG subsidy in response to a call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said the money saved on this will be used to provide gas connections to poor families.
Naidu was speaking at an awards function at the Federation of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Chambers of Commerce. He also quoted Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as saying that many illegal gas connections were identified and thousands of crores of rupees were saved by stopping supply to those consumers.
The central government on Saturday yet again appealed to affluent LPG consumers to give up subsidy, and said there was a need to think of an income bracket on the issue. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a seminar organised by the CII, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the government has saved Rs.15,000 crore by terminating 30 million duplicate LPG connections. “Since the time of implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), the government has saved Rs.15,000 crore. About 30 million duplicate LPG connections were terminated and had led to this savings,” he said. Pradhan said recently Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked him whether it was time to limit LPG subsidies to some income bracket. “I told him it was time to think about this.” He said there was an urgent need to step up activities with particular emphasis on the downstream in the eastern region of the country which had potential in the oil, gas sector.
