The Government on Thursday said it will roll out the scheme for direct transfer of domestic cooking subsidy to bank accounts in 269 new districts by January 2014.
The decision to cover new districts under the scheme was taken by the Cabinet on Thursday.
Currently, the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL) scheme is applicable in 20 districts. The UPA Government’s programme aims to improve the subsidy administration of cooking gas across the country.
As per this scheme, an LPG consumer will get his/her cylinder at full market price and the difference between the subsidised and market price, which is the subsidy, is transferred to the bank account.
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that the new districts would be covered in phases: 34 districts will be covered from September, 44 from October, 46 from November; 40 from December and 105 from January.
These districts have 90 per cent Aadhaar penetration. The opening of a bank account is a joint effort between the consumer and the bank, Chidambaram said.
Currently, DBTL scheme is covering 7.3 million domestic gas consumers. So far around 3.5 million LPG consumers have already linked their Aadhaar numbers to the LPG consumer numbers and their bank accounts in the above mentioned 20 districts and 2.4 million consumers are already receiving the subsidy directly in their bank accounts, the Government said on August 27.