New Delhi, Aug 12 The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has found the estimated savings on account of Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG in 2015-16 to be lower than that of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, primarily because of the differences in assumption of key variables.
In a report titled ‘Implementation of PAHAL (DBTL) Scheme’ tabled in the Lok Sabha on Friday, the CAG found that the Ministry estimated the savings for 2015-16 to be ₹ 9,211 crore by assuming an average LPG cylinder consumption of 12 a year and average subsidy rate of ₹ 169.45 per cylinder.
However, the CAG derived the estimated savings to be ₹ 4,813 crore for 2015-16 as it took the average LPG cylinder consumption to be 6.27 according to the national average per capita consumption of LPG cylinders.
The CAG was also of the opinion that the actual subsidy savings during April-December 2015 compared to the same period last year was primarily due to the lower subsidy rates per cylinder during the year but the implementation of DBTL too had a small contribution.
The variation in assumption of key variables was also there in the CAG’s estimation of subsidy savings for 2015-16 vis-à-vis public sector oil marketing companies’ calculations for the same.
Oil marketing companies calculated the estimated subsidy savings for 2015-16 to be ₹ 5,107.48 crore by taking an average subsidy rate of ₹ 338 per cylinder, which was the average subsidy rate per cylinder in 2014-15.
The CAG’s view was that the subsidy rate should have been ₹ 169.45 per cylinder which would mean the estimated subsidy savings for 2015-16 would have been ₹ 3,473.48 crore.