The Supreme Court has on Tuesday issued notice to the Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on a petition filed by Tamil Nadu challenging the reduction in the allocation of kerosene to the State.
A Bench, comprising Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, Justices Vikramajit Sen and Kurian Joseph, issued directions in this regard after briefly hearing the submissions of standing counsel for Tamil Nadu Subramonium Prasad.
In its petition, Tamil Nadu submitted that there was no basis for the reduction of kerosene amounting to 43 per cent from June 2011 and it has been made on flimsy grounds.
Averring that kerosene was used by the poorer sections of people for cooking purposes, the State submitted that a substantial number of people in Tamil Nadu do not have LPG connections and were dependent on kerosene for cooking.
The allocation of kerosene under the Public Distribution System- Superior Kerosene Oil was made by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The kerosene so allocated was distributed to the family cardholders under the PDS, Tamil Nadu stated.
Since there were 1,02,23,981 families with no LPG connections and 49.38 lakh had just single LPG cylinder, the demand for kerosene was huge. The required quota of kerosene was 65,140 KL per month, it pointed out.