All household LPG consumers will continue to receive subsidy even if not linked to the Aadhaar card, a top oil company official said here today.

“All consumers irrespective whether seeded with Aadhaar card or not will continue to get LPG subsidy,” Indian Oil Corporation Executive Director, Andrajit Bose, told PTI here.

He said that apprehension that subsidy for those not having the card would be discontinued from today was not true.

However, the current system of subsidised LPG cylinders for non-Aadhaar linked consumers would be valid only for the next three months, he said.

Indian Oil was the co-ordinator for all oil PSUs in West Bengal. Therefore, there was no reason for apprehension for HP Gas and BP Gas consumers also, he said.

An advertisement by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the day’s dailies on linking LPG subsidy to Aadhaar card for Kolkata, Howrah and Coochbehar districts with immediate effect, created panic among LPG consumers here.

The West Bengal Chief Minister expressed shock and pointed out that only between 15 and 20 per cent of consumers had received Aadhaar cards so far.

The IOC official said that customers who had already linked or seeded their card number with the LPG distributor and banks for cash transfer, would be mandatorily migrated to the new system.

In other words, linked consumers would buy cylinders at the market rate and the subsidy would be transferred to their bank accounts directly.

Moreover, the Government would transfer an average subsidy for LPG in advance to the bank account when the consumer booked it for the first time in the new system.

Customers would continue to get subsidies at the time of delivery for nine cylinders in a year.

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