The subsidy on the LPG is designed for the lower income group people of India, as it is the government who bears the losses out of providing subsidy to the consumer. Following to the Naredra Modi’s call to “Give it up” (the subsidy) 14,276 most generous prominent Goans have given up their LPG subsidy which will save around 23 lakhs to government treasury and the same money will be used to provide the more LPG connections to the lower income group people from villages in India.
According to the available information around 7,694 people from North Goa and 6,582 from South Goa have surrendered their LPG subsidies; the oil company in Goa is expecting more people from the state will participate in this mission. Though the list is very big but some of the prominent people who relinquished their LPG subsidy benefits include Chief Minister of Goa Laxmikant Parsekar, South Goa MP Narendra Sawaikar, Dilip Parulekar, Nilesh Cabral, Rajendra Arlekar, the Dhavalikar brothers – Sudin and Deepak, Atanasio Monserrate, Dayanand Mandrekar, Chief Secretary R K Srivastav and North Goa district collector. This list also includes the name of film star Nana Patekar who has his flat in Caranzalem, also given up his subsidy but surprisingly none of the Industrialist or Businessman from Goa figures on the list said the source from HPCL.
According to the figures made available by the oil company offices in Goa around 12,506 are consumers of HPCL while 1,562 BPCL and just 208 from IOC have given up their subsidies on the LPG in Goa. The official campaign in this regards was launched in the month of May 2015 followed by wide publicity in media, through public functions and rallies in south Goa. There was also event organized in the Mall at North Goa. The publication was also done at the retail outlets through distribution of leaflets and perusing the walk in customers at agencies. The recorded voice while booking the cylinder on phone also kept convincing the consumers.
The first call to give up the LPG subsidy and pay higher price for cooking gas was given by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the month of March 2015, the response across the country was tremendous, and around 1.5 million consumers have surrendered their subsidies across the country till date. The government has the target of 1 crore consumers and Goa is having the best track record in this being the smallest state in India.
Presently Goa has around 5.5 lakh gas connections out of which 4 lakh are the active users and 1.5 lakh connections are blocked due to various reasons either for being dormant or due to multiple connections. HPCL has the largest market share in Goa for domestic LPG supplies while BPCL standing second in the row and IOC is being the last. According to the sources Chief Minister of Goa who has IOC connection was the first person in Goa to give up his subsidy.
Giving up the subsidy is not that easy when the inflation is blowing out through your roof. But then if you think of those millions of people who do not even have the LPG and still cook their food on the old styled Chulha (stove) with lot of smoke get into their eyes, we are far much better and letting go just Rs. 200/- subsidy per month is not a big sacrifice towards them. So go ahead and give your subsidy to the needy people. Please do leave your valuable comments and suggestions on this issue.
Source: NT
Edited By: Goa Prism News Desk
