Kerala to be 1st state to roll out cash transfer scheme in all districts

Kerala, where Aadhaar penetration is 92 per cent, will become the first state in the country to see the roll-out of modified Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme in all its 14 districts.

The scheme, which is being re-launched tomorrow in 54 districts covering 11 states in the first phase, will cover 23 million crore households, Murali Krishna, general manager, IOCL Kerala and state-level coordinator of Oil Marketing Companies in the state told reporters here.

Currently, the Aadhaar generation level is 95 per cent in these districts.

"Kerala is the first state in which all districts will be covered in the first phase of the roll-out from tomorrow," he said.

Goa follows Kerala in implementation of the scheme.

In Kerala, Wayanad district has 94 per cent of its LPG customers who have linked their Aadhaar cards to oil companies and banks. There are 146,000 LPG consumers in the backward district, of which 138,000 have already linked their Aadhaar cards with oil companies and banks, deputy general manager, T Satish Kumar,said.

Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram has only 60 per cent of consumers who are cash transfer compliant (CTC), while Idukki district, which has a lot of migrant population, has only 53 per cent consumers CTC compliant.

Consumers, who had joined the scheme earlier and had received cash subsidy in their bank accounts do not need to need to do anything further. They should check their CTC status on www.MyLPG.in.

Those consumers who are not CTC compliant will get a three-month grace period during which they will receive the cylinders at subsidised rate. After this, they will get an additional three months as parking period when they will have to purchase the cylinders at market rate.

Kerala has 7.5 million LPG consumers, 75 per cent of whom are Aadhaar seeded while 65.13 per cent have taken bank seeding.

About 9,000 customers in the country, including 700 from Kerala, have opted out of the subsidy scheme, thus saving Rs 5.31 crore by way of subsidies to the government.

On the proposed LPG terminal at Puthyvypeen, Sateesh said the facility was expected to be ready in another two years.