Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 'Urja Sangam', a summit dedicated to energy, at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged those who can afford it to surrender subsidised cooking gas or LPG. The Prime Minister said that 2.8 lakh people had responded to an earlier appeal by him made last August through national advertisements issued by oil companies asking people to switch to full-price LPG. The 2.8 lakh people who had surrendered their subsidised LPG had led to a saving for the government of Rs. 100 crores.
"People who don't need LPG subsidy and those who are capable of managing without it should give it up. I ask you to join this movement. Give up gas subsidy. Create a record. The subsidy that you will give up will go a long way in benefitting the poor people.," the PM said at an energy summit in Delhi.
To give up your quota of 12 subsidized gas cylinders every year, contact your dealer; some allow you to complete a form online to opt to full-price cooking gas.
Referring to India's 77 per cent dependence on energy imports, Mr Modi said the effort should be to reduce it by 10 per cent by 2022, when India will celebrate 75 years of Independence. He said the country needs to increase domestic output of energy to reduce dependence on imports.
He also underlined the need to strengthen India's institutional mechanism to deal with the future problems of the energy sector. Mr Modi pointed out that his Jan Dhan scheme, which aims at providing a bank account to every Indian household, is key in ensuring that subsidies reach the intended beneficiaries and cut out middlemen. Mr Modi said with direct cash transfers to the account holder, leakages in welfare reforms and corruption are being checked.
"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 transfers," the Prime Minister said.