Doing so, the government had estimated that it would be saving about one-third of the cost of the LPG cylinder subsidy distributed throughout the country. This would be about Rs. 5,300 crores.
As a result, the number of LPG cylinders for this financial year of 2012-2013 was limited to only 6 cylinders.
However, it has now been noted that most of the families have already utilized their allocated quota of 6 cylinders, obtained at a price of Rs.400 (ex-Delhi price) and now have to shell out more than Rs. 900 for their gas usage for the rest of the quarter ending until March 2013.
As a result, there had been a lot of pressure on the Government by the civilians, distributors and other concerned authorities to increase this cap from the current 6 cylinders per annum up to 9 cylinders per annum.
Government, in concern with this (as it looks like) had a thought on increasing this quota. With respect to this, the Union Petroleum Minister Mr. Veerappa Moily had announced in one of the public meet of a possible increase in this quota limit.
However, since the timing of this announcement had collided with that of the elections in Gujarat, the Election Commission (EC) had noted a strong objection to this and had seeked explanation from the Union Minister.
With regard to this, Mr Veerappa Moily has now accepted that even though he had made an announcement, the issue still needs to be discussed in the cabinet and only then a consensus on increasing the cap be achieved.
As a result, the Election Commission (EC) has now warned the Union Minister Mr Veerappa Moily to restrain making such sensational announcement which could look like luring the voters in Gujarat for free publicity.
However, the issue of 6 subsidized LPG gas cylinders is still a haunting issues for families, especially those from BPL, & middle class having more than 4 members in the famliy, for whom buying any more cylinders at the market price could prove very high.
Now that even the Provident Funds (PF) is increased in comparision with the take home salary, an increase in price of LPG gas could prove an unbearable jolt for the Mango people.
Increasing the subisidized LPG cylinder count beyond 6 to 9 or above is the only way to go for this class of people to lead a reasonably comfortable life.
However it should also be noted that reducing the subsidized LPG cylinders could also open up corruption and grey markets where in some of the businesses such as that of restaurants and hotels could tip off the distributors or the delivery guys to drop in the subsidized cylinders while leaving half filled cylinders back to the actual users.
All these issues needs to be addressed before government can think of increasing or decreasing the cap on the number of subsidized LPG cylinders in India.
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