Kolkata : Urging the consumers to give up subsidy on LPG, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday reiterated that the time had come for the government to think on the issue.
“The Finance Minister asked me whether time has come to think of any income brackets for consumers to avail of LPG subsidies. I told him it is needed to think on this,” Pradhan told reporters on the sidelines of a CII seminar here.
He said that since the time of implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), the government has been able to save Rs 15,000 crore in the last fiscal.
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Pradhan said, three crore duplicate LPG connections were terminated, which had led to this savings.
The minister also said the government was also planning to include kerosene in line with LPG for targetting the subsidies effectively.
Voluntary surrender of LPG subsidies was the lowest in the East, while the figure for Kolkata was less than one lakh as against the national total of 46 lakh, he said.
