Submitting LPG subsidy in bank accounts saved government a whopping Rs 21,000 crore

Directly submitting the benefit into users’ bank accounts has helped eliminate duplicate connections as well as diversions, making the Indian Government save over Rs 21,000 crore in cooking gas LPG subisdy in the last two financial years.

It was from November 2014 that the government has started to submit subsidy amount directly into bank accounts of cooking gas consumers in select districts of India, while from January 1st 2015, the practice was started in the rest of the country.

As on April 1, 2015, there were 18.19 crore registered LPG consumers, while there were 14.85 crore active consumers, which means that 3.34 crore consumers were duplicate, fake or inactive accounts.

"Eliminating such 3.34 crore consumers helped save Rs 14,672 crore in 2014-15 fiscal (year ending March 31, 2015)," Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at a seminar on subsidies in New Delhi.

The year 2015-16 saw savings worth about Rs 7,000 crore, which was lower than the previous fiscal due to a fall in global oil prices that affected the subsidy.

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