LPG Akrama

At a meeting chaired by Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, some ministers brought pressure on Shobha to withdraw the GO as the process of weeding out the bogus LPG claimants was not done in a scientific manner. The ministers, who opposed the ‘cleansing act’ of the department, reportedly told Shobha that she should not be unduely concerned about the ‘bogus connections’ as it was the Centre which was supplying the subsidised cylinders. Gowda, soon after he became chief minister, had expressed his reservation regarding the removal of illegal connections which was countered by Shobha. In the meeting, with too many senior colleagues raising objection, she had no choice but to announce she would withdraw the GO. Shobha was not available for comments.

The minsters who are opposing Shobha Karandlaje's move are obviously harbouring vested interests. The question is is the CM also party to it all?

Mr Harish Gowda, IAS, Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Dept, GoK, through the linking up of LPG connections with BESCOM meter numbers, had come up with an almost fool-proof scheme of unearthing bogus domestic LPG connections. At the end of it all, he was poised to disconnect close to 25 lakh bogus connections, saving the exchequer close to Rs 100 cr a month (or a whopping Rs 1200 cr a year). That is the size of the loot being shared by the players involved, including the dealers (whose reasonings are laughable, at best), and their patrons in the government.

Whether borne by the centre or the state, it is ultimately the tax payer who is shouldering the burden. And, when we say tax payer, the general impression is that it is just the rich, in the belief that tax means just the income tax. What is not quite realised is that the larger revenue chunk comes from indirect taxes, like excise duty, sales tax, service tax, etc, which are leviable on every product and service, consumed even by the aam aadmi. And, it is these kinds of loots that are leading to the sky-rocketing inflation that we are facing all along. So, it is in everyone's interest to put a stop to the goings on.

Perhaps, PRAJA-RAAG will take a lead and send out a memo to the CM.

Twenty-five lakh LPG connections which were terminated by Shobha Karandlaje, minister for energy, food and civil supplies, in the drive to weed out illegal connections, have been restored by chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda. The CM's decision follows public outcry and also pressure from ministers who apparently faced public wrath.

For the full report in the ToI, click here.

If there was some truth to this so called "public outcry", one would have seen some bit of it on the net too. But, apart from one single individual (whose opinion, I am choosing to discount), no body else has raised the matter as yet over the very many e-groups that I am part of. Neither has the matter come up during RWA meets. As such, very clearly, it's only those who have illegal connections, and their patrons in the government, that have an issue with the dis-connection drive ordered in all sincerety by the Civil Suplies minister, Smt Shobha Karandlaje.

The stance of the ministers opposing the ‘cleansing act’ that "Shobha should not be unduely concerned about the ‘bogus connections’ as it was the Centre which was supplying the subsidised cylinders", clearly gives their game away.

And, DVS's reversing the order, clearly shows that the lessons of BSY and his land scam associates landing up in jail has not gone home with his government. A scam ia scam whether dealing with land, or with LPG, and the punishment for both can't be different.

Good news for those who have more than two cooking gas connections at home. Food & civil supplies minister Shobha Karandlaje on Saturday said her department won’t act against illegal gas connections, at least for now. - - - “Earlier this month, the department directed us to disconnect illegal connections. But consumers opposed it and the CM gave instructions not to proceed,” said a gas agency proprietor.

For the full report in the ToI, under the headline '12 lakh LPG consumers breathe easy', click here.

So, does having two gas connections, make one of them illegal? If yes, and they have been identified, why is the government shirking from cutting them off? And, when the agency proprietor talks about "consumers opposing the move", what validity is there to it?

Further, shouldn't ToI be captioning the article as '12 lakh racketeers breathe easy'?

Through this letter, have alerted the Ministry of Petroleum, GoI, on the complicity of GoK in the Rs 1200 cr loot.

May be after sometime, I'll raise a query under RTI as to what action has been taken.

What has been happening is that households have availing more than one LPG connections, and then trading in them, in connivance with the dealers (largely relatives of politicos). The linking up with the ESCOM RR nos brought out this figure at a whopping 25 lakhs, accounting for Rs 1200 cr per annum, in Karnataka alone. As long as the subsidy policy is in place, nobody need give up what's due to him/ her. But, just by preventing the illegal stretching of the subsidy scheme to the 2nd connection and beyond itself, the GoI will save Rs 1200 cr x (28 states + 7 Union territories), which can certainly put a simle back on Pranab-da's presently scowling face, particularly in the current pre-budget season.

Jailed mining king G. Janardhana Reddy took a whopping 240 subsidised cylinders in 12 months. That is one cylinder for every one-and-a-half days. Compare this to a maximum of 12 cylinders a citizen gets annually. The Central exchequer lost Rs.1.92 lakh but Reddy didn't even get a rap on the knuckles.

The Food and Civil Supplies Department (FCSD) and oil companies have found many Janardhana Reddys in every district, diverting gas cylinders to the black market. Former minister B. Somashekar of the Janata Dal (United), himself a gas dealer, told India Today: "As a politician, I am telling you that 90 per cent of the LPG dealers and blackmarketeers in the state are either politicians, bureaucrats, or their kin."

The political class's direct involvement is evident from a superficial look at the gas dealers in Karnataka. The gas dealers' association head is Radhakrishna, Union minister Mallikarjun M. Kharge's son-in-law. M. Nagaratnamma, wife of Union minister K.H. Muniyappa, also owns a gas dealership. Nearly every other gas dealer is either an MLA or the relative of one.

For the full report in "India Today', click here.

Not surprising that the loot has been going on for so long. But, can the civil society afford to just sit and watch while such huge sums of tax payers' money is being stolen right under thier nose?

A tight vigil against diversion of subsidized fuel meant for domestic use seems to be paying off. The consumption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), commonly called cooking gas, has started to dip since government capped sale of subsidized cylinders to every household and for the first time ever, sales have fallen for two successive months in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year. Consumption fell 0.7% in April 2013 over April 2012 while in May the fall was more pronounced at 5.2%.

Interestingly, while sales of the 14.2-kg cylinder meant for domestic use has dipped, officials said consumption of the 19-KG cylinder meant for commercial purposes has grown around 10% since September 2012 (when the order to cap subsidized cylinder was announced).

It is evident that diversion of subsidized LPG for commercial and automotive purposes has halted.

For the full report in the ToI, click here.

More than the capping, I expect, has been the effect of linking the connection to the ESCOM RR no.

The misuse could be further curbed once the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer of LPG subsidy (DBTL), which has already started in Tumkur (check this ToI report), comes into effect across the country.

This is the genuine route to reach subsidies to the beneficiaries, as compared to the "food security bill", which is essentially to perpetuate the vested interests.