KOCHI: At a time when voluntary surrender of LPG subsidy has become a huge success nationwide with over 10 lakh consumers surrendering them, just 15,667 persons have given it up in Kerala so far prompting oil company officials to appeal to the people of the state to come forward to make the surrender a success.
The largest supplier in Kerala, IOC, has 6354 surrendering their subsidy, Hindustan Petroleum has 5423 surrenders and BPCL, 3890. The largest surrender is from Uttar Pradesh at 2, 12,071 persons.
Maharashtra is second at 1,64,190 followed by Delhi in third position at 1,15,936, as on July 10, 2015. The campaign to reduce the number of subsidy cylinders was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 27 this year.
In south India, Karnataka is on top with 80,146 surrenders followed by Tamil Nadu with 68,146 persons. Around 15.3 crore consumers are registered with the three oil companies which a total subsidy of Rs 40,000 crore by giving 12 LPG cylinders every year.
The total saving for the Central Government with 10 lakh odd consumers surrenders is expected to be Rs 145 crore, according to IOC officials.
A total of 4,65,763 IOC consumers across the country have given up the LPG subsidy while the figures for HPCL is 2,86,373 and BPCL is 2,83,127 and the grand total as on July 10 is 10,35,263. Some of the major contributing states include Andhra Pradesh (32,315), Bihar (41,641), Gujarat (32,719), Haryana (35,455), Madhya Pradesh (28,797), Punjab (29,908), Rajasthan (35,007), Telangana (23,695) and West Bengal (37355).
“More people from Kerala are financially capable of giving up the LPG subsidy and they should do this so that the money can be diverted for development purposes,” said an IOC official.
