The Centre is leaving no stone unturned to make the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL) a success.
In a departure from the past, even officials in the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas have been roped in and have been allotted a district each to monitor day-to-day implementation of the scheme. Petroleum Secretary Saurabh Chandra has been allotted Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has adopted Palwal in Haryana.
“As on date 7.2 crore or 47.7 per cent of active consumers have joined the scheme. The numbers involved are huge. It was decided that each officer of the Ministry, besides the Minister, as well as officials of the three public sector undertakings, will adopt one district each to monitor implementation on a daily basis,” a senior official said.
The scheme, which now covers 676 districts across the country, was re-launched on November 15, 2014, covering 54 districts across Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Puducherry, and Daman & Diu. It has been extended to the rest of the country (622 more districts) from January 1.
“The officials will try to address consumer grievances to ensure targets are met,” said an oil company executive.
Publicity campaignThe revised scheme, named ‘PAHAL’, is being widely publicised through advertisements, hoardings, banners and posters. Electronic media will also be used for the publicity campaign.
The Aadhaar-linked DBTL was launched by the previous, Congress-led UPA regime, but was discontinued in early 2014. The Modi government re-launched the revised scheme in November.
Under the revised scheme, customers with or without an Aadhaar card number can avail themselves of the subsidy by seeding their bank account number with their customer identity. After January 1, a three-month grace period has been given to customers to shift to the scheme, if they want.