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Naidu's subsidised LPG scheme incurs opposition wrath

Shireen in Hyderabad

Andhra Pradesh will soon become the first state to provide subsidised cooking gas connections to one million rural poor families if Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu's plans materialise.

Naidu first announced the proposal at a public meeting at Amalapuram in East Godavari district on June 7.

"By providing smokeless chulhas, the government has eliminated the inconvenience of conventional chulhas. Now, the state will go a step ahead and provide cooking gas connections to families below the poverty line in the villages."

He claimed that his plan was to give at least 700,000 to 800,000 gas connections with two cylinders each. The gas connections and liquefied petroleum gas cylinders will be exempted from tax by the state government.

Later, he hiked the number of proposed connections to one million. Already, several rounds of meetings have been held with four private gas companies and the details of the scheme and modalities for the selection of beneficiaries were being worked out.

Initial estimates show that the scheme will entail a financial burden of Rs 1 billion on the state exchequer, at the rate of Rs 1,000 per connection. A new gas connection, comprising a 5.5 kg cylinder, a regulator and a single burner stove, costs Rs 1,100. Similarly, a gas connection with a 12-kg cylinder will entail initial an expenditure of Rs 1,585.

The government's subsidy will be pegged at Rs 1,000 per connection. Private gas companies will be asked to set up outlets all over the state to ensure gas supply within a radius of 15 kilometres from the mandal headquarters.

At present, Andhra Pradesh has 2.6 million gas connections released by the public and private sector companies.

The Indian government has promised to release a quota of 600,000 gas connections a year to Andhra Pradesh in the next few years. To implement the new scheme, the government needs at least 700,000 to 800,000 connections in the next 100 to 150 days.

The opposition parties have accused Naidu of mooting the scheme to lure the rural voters, especially women to bolster the poll prospects of the ruling Telugu Desam Party.

Some opposition leaders have termed the scheme as an election stunt while others have dismissed it as an impracticable proposition.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Communist Party of India have termed the proposal an election stunt.

"Chandrababu Naidu has made the announcement only to lure women on the eve of elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly. How can the government give gas connections to the poor who cannot afford to buy even firewood?" said CPI-M state committee secretary B V Raghuvulu.

Similar criticism has been levelled by CPI state council secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy. "The scheme, if implemented, will lead to yet another scam in the state. The scheme is apparently intended to help the private gas companies but it is not possible to provide so many gas connections in such a short time. The CPI is opposed to involving the private gas companies in this scheme," he said.

The Congress, Anna-Telugu Desam Party and Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao-Telugu Desam Party, too, have questioned the chief minister's motives. "When the public sector oil companies such as Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation are not able to provide even 150,000 new gas connections in the state in a year, how can the chief minister provide one million gas connections?" wondered Anna-TDP leader and Rajya Sabha member Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad.

Dr Prasad, who is a member of the joint parliamentary committee on oil and natural gas, said that "as many as 1.1 million applicants are on the waiting list for gas connections in the state. Providing connections to them will take a few years and Chandrababu Naidu's plan to release one million connections to the poor within a few months will only prove to be a pipe-dream. "

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