New Delhi October 16, 2009 – The government today launched an ambitious scheme to expand coverage of domestic cooking gas to rural areas, and plans to give poor people LPG stoves free of cost to bring at least three-fourth of the population under the LPG coverage.
The Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG Vitrak scheme aims at setting up small size LPG distribution agencies in areas, which till now were not considered as economically viable, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told reporters after launching the scheme. The scheme would, however, require the consumers to buy LPG cylinders from the agencies and transport themselves as against the present model of distributors doing a home delivery.
Small LPG distributorship would be set up in rural areas with a potential of selling 600 refills a month as against the present convention that requires an agency in place with no less than 3,000 cylinder sales. Deora said the scheme is initially being launched in eight states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa, covering over 1,200 locations where the reach of LPG is very low. “Home delivery of the cylinders will add to the cost of the distributor and will make the whole scheme economically unviable given the low sales,” IOC Chairman S Behuria said. Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Jitin Prasada said it is proposed that oil firms utilise 15 per cent of their CSR funds to give free LPG stoves to BPL families.
