New Delhi: The NDA government is mulling to lift the subsidy on LPG cylinder for consumers whose annual income is above Rs 10 lakh, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said here today.
"Dharmendra Pradhan (Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas) told me that the Government has found many of illegal gas connections and is saving thousands of crore of rupees by stopping supply to those consumers," the Union Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs said.
"They (the government) are also planning that the consumers whose income is above Rs 10 lakh, gas subsidy will not be given. Why do they need subsidy? Why ministers need subsidy? So far, 30 lakh people have given up LPG subsidy.
That subsidy will be given to poor people," he said.
Earlier in the day, Dharmendra Pradhan urged the consumers to give up subsidy on LPG and reiterated that the time had come for the government to think on the issue.
"The finance minister asked me whether time has come to think of any income brackets for consumers to avail of LPG subsidies. I told him it is needed to think on this," Pradhan said.
He said that since the time of implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), the government has been able to save Rs 15,000 crore in the last fiscal.
Pradhan said, three crore duplicate LPG connections were terminated, which had led to this savings.
The minister also said the government was also planning to include kerosene in line with LPG for targetting the subsidies effectively.
Voluntary surrender of LPG subsidies was the lowest in the East, while the figure for Kolkata was less than one lakh as against the national total of 46 lakh, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
