Government boosts LPG production, orders e-KYC to plug gaps

INdian refineries feature ramped up house servant liquified oil gaseous state (LPG) output by about 36% since March 5 to meet requirements for over 330 million consumers an official said on Monday, adding that the government continues to monitor LPG supplies amid prevailing geopolitical situation.The government’s highest priority remains ensuring uninterrupted domestic LPG supplies, particularly for households and priority sectors such as hospitals and educational institutions, Sujata Sharma, joint secretary in the petroleum ministry said while giving latest update of fuel supply situation.“No dry-outs have been reported at LPG distributorships,” she said. According to her, online LPG cylinder bookings have increased from about 84% to around 90% across the industry and delivery authentication code (DAC) coverage has been expanded from 53% before the crisis to about 72% to prevent diversion of cylinders at the distributor level.Several states and union territories including Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Manipur and Maharashtra have issued orders to allocate Non-domestic LPG in line with the government’s guidelines, she said.Meanwhile, the government has directed “all” domestic consumers of cooking gas (LPG) to get electronic know your customer customers (e-KYC) done through biometric Aadhaar authentication system. According to executives of state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs), the measure is to check diversion on gas cylinders to non-priority sectors.“All domestic LPG consumers are required to complete biometric Aadhaar authentication (e-KYC),” petroleum ministry said in a post on X and facebook. “Now verify from the comfort of your home using your Oil Marketing Company’s (OMCs) mobile app and Aadhaar FaceRD app,” it read.To be sure, annual biometric Aadhaar authentication is mandatory for over 10.51 crore (105.1 million) Ujjwala beneficiaries to avail subsidy that government gives on on cooking gas. Standard operating procedure of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) also clearly mentions biometric authentication as a prerequisite to apply for a new connection, an executive said. Under PMUY, a beneficiary gets up to seven LPG refills in a financial year even without e-KYC. Thus, the refill supply is not interrupted in want of e-KYC.In order to avail more than seven refills in a particular financial year, the beneficiary has to get biometric Aadhaar authentication done. A PMUY beneficiary is required to do e-KYC done only once in a financial year. PMUY was launched in May 2016 with an objective to provide deposit free LPG connection to adult women from poor households across the country.To make LPG more affordable to PMUY consumers and ensure sustained usage of LPG by them, in May 2022, the government started a targeted subsidy of ₹200 per 14.2 kg cylinder (and proportionately pro-rated for 5 kg connections) to the PMUY consumers which was subsequently increased to ₹300 per 14.2 kg cylinder (and proportionately pro-rated for 5 kg connections).Energy supply disruptions due to the war in West Asia have hit LPG supplies. The OMCs on March 7 raised cooking gas prices across the country by ₹60 per 14.2 kg cylinder, taking the price of domestic LPG cylinders in Delhi to ₹913. For PMUY beneficiaries it costs ₹613 in Delhi. According to industry executives, the current rate hike reflects a partial transmission of the impact caused by an energy supply crunch in West Asia after the war in the region disrupted tanker movement through the Strait of Hormuz.“For FY 2025-26, the Government is providing a targeted subsidy of ₹300 per cylinder for upto 9 refills of 14.2 Kg cylinders per annum (proportionately pro-rated for 5 Kg connections),” minister of state for petroleum Suresh Gopi told the Rajya Sabha on March 9. On August 8 last year, the Union Cabinet approved the targeted subsidy of ₹300 per 14.2 kg cylinder for up to nine refills per year (and proportionately pro-rated for 5 kg cylinder) to the beneficiaries of PMUY during 2025-26 at an expenditure of ₹12,000 crore.