PAHAL Scheme for Direct Benefit Transfer of Subsidy for LPG

PAHAL is the name of scheme launched for direct benefit transfer of subsidy for LPG (DBTL).This scheme was earlier launched on 1 June 2013 on trial basic earlier in this scheme it was mandatory to have aadhaar number seeded with account number ,than only cash subsidy transferred to the bank account of LPG account holder.

By this scheme ran in trouble after supreme Court ruling that no person can be denied subsidy on the basic of not having aadhaar number

So government examined the difficulties faced by consumer and modified the scheme and re-launched in 54 districts on 15-11-2014 in 1st phase and launched in rest of 622 districts in phase 2 all over India on 1-1-2015.Once consumer join the scheme he will get LPG cylinder at market price and will receive LPG subsidy in his bank account .

Modified scheme not make it mandatory to make aadhar number its gives two options to consumer:

Options:

1. Aadhar based transfer scheme –In this scheme aadhar number is seeded with account number and subsidy on LPG cylinder is transferred to account number and LPG number is linked with Aadhar number of customer.
2. In this bank details of account number is directly linked to 17 digit LPG id and cash subsidy is transferred to bank account number .

If the LPG consumers who do not wish to avail the LPG subsidy for LPG cylinders can simply choose to opt out of subsidy. Over 12000 citizens have already voluntarily given up subsidy freeing up crores of subsidy amount for under privileged population.

Impact

The main of launching Pahal is to check leakages , delays and bring transparency . DBTL is designed to ensure that the benefit meant for the genuine domestic customer reaches them directly and is not diverted. By this process public money will be saved.