Saudi Arabia's steep cut in LPG benchmark prices has pushed India's household LPG underrecoveries to their lowest level in over two years, slashing oil companies' losses from Rs 200-250 per cylinder last year to about Rs 20-40 now.
India may have to lean more on West Asian nations for supplies of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a cooking fuel, in the coming years after Indian state-run refiners drew up big plans to diversify into producing more profitable petrochemicals. This shift leads to reduced LPG output, Indian refining executives said. The mantra for state-run oil companies, from Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer Petronet LNG, which are looking to diversify their businesses from lower-margin fuels, has been value-added petrochemicals.
The government on Tuesday announced a Rs 200 per cylinder cut in prices of domestic cooking gas as it looked to counter the cheaper LPG promise of the Congress in upcoming assembly elections in states like Madhya Pradesh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced a Rs 100 per cylinder cut in cooking gas LPG price to ease financial burden on households. Non-subsidised cooking gas price will be cut to Rs 803 per 14.2-kg cylinder in the national capital with effect from midnight of Friday/Saturday, official sources said. Prices vary from state to state depending on the incidence on local taxes.
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At present, a 14.2-kg LPG cylinder in the national capital costs Rs 1,103. It will cost Rs 903 when the Centre's decision is implemented from Wednesday.
In accordance with Supreme Court directives to the states, the Madhya Pradesh cabinet approved MP Mob Lynching Victim Compensation Scheme 2023, said minister for medical education Vishwas Sarang after the cabinet meeting.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said three months before the five state elections, where the 'BJP is staring at certain defeat', and six months before the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is literally clutching at straws.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman cut fuel subsidies while slapping additional fuel taxes on unblended transport fuels in the latest Union Budget. The former will hit the rural poor, households that secured a subsidised LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a programme that was partly instrumental in helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the 2019 general elections. The latter will pretty much hurt the entire population after it kicks in from October. That's what it looks like. Or, perhaps, it's not as it appears to be, at least on the subsidy front.
With the price of a cylinder touching Rs 800, it's becoming increasingly unaffordable to an already price-sensitive population, threatening to risk one of the most-celebrated campaigns of the Modi regime, reports Twesh Mishra.
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas is evaluating a threshold at which the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or cooking gas) will be reinstated. According to a senior government official in the know, a survey is currently being conducted to determine the price at which maximum consumers will keep buying domestic cylinders. One of the options also being considered is to limit any subsidy disbursal only to Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries.
The relaxation would be available only to those beneficiaries who have been credited with the advance for buying the cylinder but have not been able to purchase the refill.
Given that the target was to reach 80.34 million families under PMUY - within three months starting April 1 - the government should have distributed at least 241.02 million cylinders by the end of June. It actually ended up distributing only 119.7 million cylinders.
LPG price was increased to Rs 858.50 per 14.2 kg cylinder from Rs 714 previously, according to a price notification from State-owned oil firms. This is the steepest hike in rates since January 2014, when prices had gone up by Rs 220 per cylinder to Rs 1,241.
Of the 170 million rural households in the country, a government website claims to have connected 82 per cent of them. The metered households are 50 per cent of the total. As on February, 2018, of the 780,000 villages to be intensively electrified or provide connection to all in households, 493,000 have been covered. However, the amount and quality of the power supply cannot be ascertained from this data. No clause in any of the rural electrification programmes promises 24 hours' power supply.
Over 100 beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana from 20 states will share with the LPG panchayat their experiences of how clean cooking fuel has changed their lives, in the presence of President Ram Nath Kovind.
One of the major challenges before the government is that the annual average refill by a PMUY consumer is 3.28 cylinders compared to seven for others.
Only 48.3 per cent of the rural households used LPG, while the figures were much higher in urban areas at 86.6 per cent, according to a NSO report.
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The kerosene subsidy is expected to decline by 40 per cent from Rs 7,595 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 4,500 crore this financial year.
A shortfall in LPG supply from Aramco has led to huge booking backlog across states. To meet the backlog, India has asked Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for two additional cargos of LPG, but that may take another 10 days to reach.
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Ujjwala Yojana was launched on May 1, 2016 at Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh and has so far covered 47.3 million consumers in 715 districts
A swift recovery in oil demand in India is not only helping the stability of the global market, it is giving huge fiscal headroom to the government in terms of additional excise duty.
OMCs' Digital India move is likely to have an impact on more than 80.3 million Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana consumers, majority of whom are not exposed to digital transact.
A major reason for the decline in the consumption of kerosene was an increase in the number of LPG consumers in rural India after the government launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. in 2016.
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'Individual beneficiary desirous of availing the benefits under the scheme (PMUY) is hereby required to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication,' said a gazette notification issued by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 9,272 and as many as 1,189 people have been cured and discharged, and one has migrated, it said.
The government had last year excluded those with an annual income of more than Rs 10 lakh from LPG subsidy
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