The central government’s decision on Thursday to supply six subsidised cylinders per year comes into force from next month, notwithstanding the number of cylinders used by one.
However, since halfyear has already passed, the dealers have now been ordered to provide only three LPG cylinders at a subsidised price of Rs 401.50 to each customer till March 2013.
The decision of the Union cabinet in this regard was communicated to all the LPG dealers by three public oil companies: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOC).
Speaking to Express, Andhra Pradesh LPG Dealers Association president P Venkateswara Rao said, “Any additional cylinder will be charged at about Rs 750-800. The final price is likely to be fixed by the oil companies over the next three months,” he said.
Currently, there are about 1.4 crore LPG connections in the state, of which around one crore are domestic connections and rest are commercial. Approximately, about one crore cylinders are delivered every month.
The dealers are waiting for specific guidelines over monitoring the delivery of subsidised cylinders, which is being worked out by the oil companies.
To ensure transparency and avoid unnecessary trouble over number of subsidised cylinders delivered to a customer, the dealers have written to the oil companies to work out a system, in addition to the existing online monitoring system that is through the online ‘ transparency portal ’ (http://www.bharatpetroleum. com/Transparency_ portal/LPG_portal.html).
The dealers will monitor the delivery of cylinders by tallying the passbooks of customers and delivery registers of dealers for the time being