Despite freebies given by the UPA Government to the common man in the last 18 months by relaxing cap on subsidised domestic lPG cylinders per family twice, the sale of cooking gas for all the three oil marketing companies (OMCs namely Indane, Bharat Gas and HP Gas) during the April-February period of the current fiscal was only a meagre 0.30 per cent in Delhi over the corresponding period last year.
Industry sources pointed out that though the lPG cap was first relaxed from six subsidised cylinders per family annually to nine per family in late 2012 (which was soon after M Veerappa Moily had taken over as the Petroleum Minister in October 2012) and then to 12 per family in January this year, the move has had no impact on its overall sales in Delhi and Haryana region, owing mainly due to the rapid growth in piped natural gas (PNG) connections in Delhi.
In addition to this, with the Supreme Court on March 24 having asked the Government to withdraw orders making Aadhaar card mandatory, it will prove a major setback to the Petroleum Ministry’s ongoing plan of making direct subsidy payment in the bank accounts of lPG buyers. As this was being done in a phased manner across the country to households using subsidised lPG cylinders on the basis of them having Aadhar card, the Supreme Court’s orders have thrown a spanner on the Government’s ambitious scheme.
Though the figures are only for Delhi, the significant fact is that in the national capital alone 50 lakh lPG cylinders are booked on a daily basis.
According to figures available with The Pioneer, even the sale of bulk gas across the country (which includes, domestic as well as lPG used in automobiles and for bulk/commercial purposes) during the aforementioned period was a mere 3 per cent. All the three OMCs together sold 4,29,400 metric tonnes of bulk gas across the country during April-February period of the current financial year. During the corresponding period of the previous fiscal 4,16,893 metric tonnes of bulk gas were sold by the three OMCs.
In Delhi, during the April-February period of FY14, the three OMCs sold a total of 10,28,068 metric tonnes of domestic gas, which is 0.30 per cent more than 10,24,961 metric tonnes of natural resources sold by them during the corresponding period.
In fact if only the figures of the month of February 2014 are considered, then the three OMCs sold 91,274 metric tonnes of domestic gas in the national capital, down by 5 per cent compared to 95,928 metric tonnes sales of the corresponding period last year.
More interestingly, Indane, the largest retailer of domestic lPG recorded a negative growth in its sales in Delhi in the April-February period of FY14. Indane sold 5,65,790 metric tonnes of domestic lPG gas in the current fiscal, whereas during the April-February period of FY13, it had sold 5,73,578 metric tonnes of domestic gas, thus recording a negative growth of 1.36 per cent.
Similarly in the month of February 2014, Indane sold 43,054 metric tonnes of domestic gas, 18.9 per cent less than 53,091 metric tonnes of what it had sold in February 2013 in the national capital.