Dear Readers,

The Pratyaksh Hanstantrit Labh or PAHAL has been in the news of late and can be very important for your upcoming exams. In today’s article, let us look at the PAHAL scheme – one of the government’s flagship schemes – its salient features and recent developments.

In early October 2015, it was reported that the PAHAL scheme has enabled the government to save cooking gas subsidy to the tune of Rs.14,672 crore in 2014-15. Under this scheme, subsidy is directly transferred to the beneficiary’s bank account, as this plugs any leakages. It is also known as the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) scheme.

Background:

• PAHAL was first launched on June 1, 2013 and it initially covered 291 districts. However, several customers faced issues with linking their Aadhar card to their banks accounts. The scheme was thus modified to eliminate these problems.

• On relaunch, the scheme was available in 54 districts by November 2014 as a part of phase I. Later in January 2015, 622 districts were covered in phase II.

Objectives:

• The government launched this scheme in order tobenefit genuine domestic LPG cylinder users without having it diverted. The aim was to ensure better management of the subsidy and reduce burden to the exchequer.

• Another reason of transferring the subsidy directly to consumers’ bank accounts was to curtail corruption in the process and save public money.

Details of the PAHAL scheme:

• Consumers have to link their Aadhar number, LPG consumer number to their bank accounts. If they do not have Aadhar card, they can link their bank account directly with their 17-digit LPG ID.

• Therefore, on joining this scheme consumers will get cylinders at market price and the subsidy will be directly remitted in their bank accounts. The beneficiary will be referred to as the Cash Transfer Compliant (CTC).

• On first booking an LPG cylinder, Rs.568 deposited in the consumer’s bank account in advance, so that the consumer has extra money required to pay for the first cylinder.

• The government provides 12 refill cylinders annually at subsidised rates.

• Consumers have to fill up a form available with the gas distributors to avail this form or visit http://www.mylpg.in/ for details.

Conclusion

Though the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has claimed that the implementation of the PAHAL scheme has resulted in savings amounting to Rs.14,672 crore, there are some who contest it. An analysis done by the International Institute of Sustainable development (IISD) using public data suggests that the government has made an inflated claim and that the maximum potential savings of possible is only Rs.143.4 crore.

Dear Readers, current affairs forms an important component of several competitive exams such as the UPSC Civil Services Examination, SSC CGL, Bank PO & PSU entrance tests, etc. Therefore, understanding new initiatives terms/concepts/schemes that are in the news is critical for aspirants.

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