The Empowered Group of Ministers is expected to meet on Tuesday and is likely to consider capping the number of LPG cylinders that the consumers can buy at the current subsidised prices.

This is part of the recommendations by the Task Force on Director Transfer of Subsidies on Kerosene, LPG, and Fertiliser. In its report submitted last week, the task force, while recommending capping the number of cylinders, said that this is a policy decision for the Government to take.

The Ministerial panel on the financial health of public sector oil companies will consider fixing a per-cylinder subsidy that would be directly transferred from the Government to the consumers' Aadhar (Unique Identification Number)-enabled bank account.

Non-subsidised cylinders can be purchased without the consumer having a connection, the Task Force said in its Interim Report. In the final phase, the provision of subsidised cylinders would be made available only to targeted consumers, with the others having to procure their entire requirement at the market price.

For kerosene, the Task Force has mooted a two-phase implementation of the direct transfer of subsidy. In the first phase, State Governments may be made to purchase kerosene from oil companies at market price from April 1, 2012. The subsidy can, then, be transferred to the State Governments, linked to the actual offtake of kerosene by them.

In the second stage, the cash equivalent of subsidy would be transferred directly to the beneficiaries' bank accounts by linking the transactions to Aadhar.

States would be required to open a ‘kerosene' account for beneficiaries with Aadhar. The cash subsidy will again be proportional to the actual quantity of kerosene lifted by them.

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