It is likely that not more than 30 percent of Aadhaar card holders will be getting the cooking gas subsidy amount credited to their bank accounts from May 15.
The new scheme, taken up on a pilot basis, is being implemented in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Chittoor, Anantapur and East Godavari districts.
According to sources, only about 21 percent of Aadhaar card holders in the five districts are learnt to have registered their card numbers with their banks and their respective gas agencies as on March 4 and the number is likely to increase by another 9 percent in the next 10 days. However, the possibility of having more number of people getting their card number registered with their respective banks is not ruled out.
There are 49.57 lakh gas consumers in the five districts, of whom 23.88 lakh have got their Aadhaar card numbers registered with gas dealers. As many as 2.02 crore of the 2.27 crore people in these five districts have been issued Aadhaar cards, officials said.
Though oil companies have been entrusted with the task of collecting Aadhaar card numbers from domestic gas consumers through their respective agencies, no such provision has been made for the registration of Aadhaar cards with banks, which is necessary for the cash transfer to happen.
Instead, government had asked individuals to have their card numbers registered with banks where they have their accounts to avoid any confusion or delay. It is now up to the consumers to either register their Aadhaar card number with respective banks to get the cash (subsidy amount) transferred to their account or lose the subsidy by not linking the card number with the bank account.
Recently, when one consumer in Hyderabad went to a nationalised bank to have his Aadhaar card number registered with the bank to link it with his bank account and asked the staff whether he would have the cash transferred to his account, the answer he got was, ‘’We do not know. We have heard about the scheme and we were asked to register the Aadhaar Card number and link it up with respective individual account. How and when the cash will be transferred, we have no idea. If there is a delay in the cash transfer, bank should not be blamed as it is the government that has to transfer the cash.’’
Every domestic gas consumer gets nine refills of LPG on his card and once he books for the refill, the subsidy amount of Rs 600 is transferred to his account in a couple of days. When the gas is delivered, the consumer is expected to pay in full that is Rs 1,000 which is the cost of the cylinder. At present, LPG refill is being provided at Rs 400 with government paying the subsidy of `600 directly to oil companies.
Those, who have not had received their Aadhaar cards or failed to register with gas agency and bank, have time till August 15 and they can enjoy gas refill at subsidised price and later they have to shell out full amount of around Rs 1,000.
“It is better for all Aadhaar card holders to register with respective gas agencies and banks.” an official said.