Hyderabad: The state government has halved the kerosene quota to PDS beneficiaries in municipal corporations and municipalities, down to one litre per ration card from December. The government cited the Centre cutting kerosene quota to the state as the reason for the cut. Beneficiaries in rural and urban areas will get a litre of kerosene. Civil supplies commissioner C.V. Anand issued orders to this effect on Monday.
The Centre has been reducing kerosene quotas to all states since 2015 with a view to encouraging the use of LPG and making the country ‘kerosene-free’. The Centre launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, a scheme to provide free LPG connections to BPL families in April 2016. People in interior and tribal areas, where there is no proper road connectivity or with LPG dealerships located in far-off locations, are facing hardships in obtaining LPG cylinders.
They still rely on kerosene for cooking. LPG dealers refuse to supply cylinders to the interior areas citing higher transportation costs. The orders stated that the Centre had cut down state's kerosene quota from 9,072 kilo litres to 8,184 kilo litres per month, which was not sufficient to meet the demand as per existing allocations.
