Hyderabad: Quite a few domestic LPG consumers in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are coming forward to opt out of the LPG subsidy following Prime Minister Narendra Modi recent appeal.
Surprisingly, there is good response from common consumers for the initiative, while there is lukewarm response from VIPs like netas, ministers, bureaucrats etc, for whom the PM’s appeal was intended.
While several ministers, officials, industrialists etc. at the national-level have already announced giving up their LPG subsidy, there have been no such announcements from the ministers, bureaucrats and industrialists in both the states. AP Chief Minister N. Chandra-babu Naidu announced giving up the subsidy, his TS counterpart, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, is yet to respond.
Though this initiative was launched last year by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) themselves, less than 500 consumers had registered to give up subsidy in both states till February this year.
However, the number has increased considerably over the last two weeks after the PM made a public appeal to this effect. In TS the number has crossed 3,000 while in AP it has touched 3,000. However, there are no big names from political, corporate or bureaucratic circles in this list.
The number is expected to increase further in the coming days with several corporate firms extending support to Mr Modi and urging their employees to give up the subsidy.
As per official statistics available with OMCs, as many as 90,535 HPCL consumers, 40,511 BPCL and 1,93,193 IOC consumers have given up the subsidy till April 8 across the country.
Both in TS and AP, majority of the consumers who gave up subsidy hail from big cities.
