PM appeals to well off people to give up subsidised LPG

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday appealed to the well off people to give up subsidised cooking gas, and expressed his government's resolve to reduce dependence on energy imports by 10 per cent by 2022.

Sharing oil companies' plans to increase piped cooking gas connection to one crore households from 27 lakh currently in the next four years, Modi said the decision to surrender LPG subsidy by 2.8 lakh consumers could result in a savings of Rs 100 crore.

"I had made a small mention about giving up LPG subsidy. As many as 2.80 lakh people has responded positively...And this will lead to a saving of at least Rs 100 crore. This Rs 100 crore can be utilised for the welfare of poor", Modi said while speaking at the 'Urja Sangam' here.

Since the government started the new scheme of direct benefit transfer (DBT) for cooking gas, several persons opted out of the subsidy scheme.

Modi said that 12 crore bank accounts opened under the Jan Dhan scheme are being used for transferring subsidies directly to the consumers which has helped in plugging the leakages and effectively fighting corruption.

"To fight corruption, if institutional mechanism, transparent mechanism, policy driven system can be put in place then we can prevent leakages. And this has been proved by cash transfer," the Prime Minister said.

Referring to India's 77 per cent dependence on energy imports, Modi said the effort should be to reduce it by 10 per cent by 2022, when India will celebrate 75 years of Independence.

"We can reduce this import by at least 10 per cent in 2022. This 10 per cent we will produce ourselves and this should be our dream.

"If we become successful in reducing import by 10 per cent in 2022, by achieving 10 per cent growth in domestic production, then I can assure you that by 2030 we can reduce this import to 50 per cent," he added.