Hyderabad In LPG Pilot Project

Hyderabad, Mysore and Tumkur have been chosen by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) for a pilot project through which Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and kerosene would be supplied to those who have a Unique Identification Number.

This was revealed during the signing of a Memorandum Of Understanding between the Administrative Ministry for Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs – IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL) and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on Friday, to facilitate the close co-operation and working of the UIDAI with the Ministry and OMCs for the implementation of the UID project.

MoPNG Joint Secretary Apurva Chandra and UIDAI Deputy Director General K Ganga signed the MoU on behalf of MoPNG and UIDAI respectively, in the presence of the minister Murli Deora, UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani and minister of state Jitin Prasad.

Senior officers from the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, UIDAI and oil marketing companies, were present.

The MoPNG entered into the partnership with UIDAI to authorize the OMCs to be registrars for the implementation of the Aadhar project of the UIDAI, meant for issue Unique Identification Numbers (Aadhaar numbers) to all residents in India, while implementing the smart card project related to distribution of PDS kerosene and domestic LPG through bio-metric identification of beneficiaries.

As per the MOU executed today, the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) would act as registrars for the UIDAI on behalf of the MoPNG for the implementation of the project.

This would help in accurately identifying users and beneficiaries of the services rendered by the OMCs and have uniform standards and processes for their verification and identification.

The ministry, with the OMCs, along with the UIDAI will chart out a joint roadmap for the implementation of Aadhaar numbers in the OMC's database.

There are more than 11.5 crore LPG customers in the country today and it is envisioned that by the year 2015, there would be 16 crore LPG customers. The population coverage is expected to increase from 55% today to 75% by 2015 with greater penetration in rural and underserved areas.

The MoPNG has launched the RGGLVY scheme to increase the rural coverage and proposes to encourage enrolment of BPL families as LPG customers by providing one time financial assistance for enrolment.

The de-duplication process and the online authentication that the UIDAI offers will enhance the efficiency of OMCs in their delivery of services for the increasing customer base.

The bio-metric smart card based distribution of PDS SKO and domestic LPG Pilot Project will be executed along with the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, who have already entered into an MOU with the UIDAI.

The initial pilots would be held in the city of Hyderabad, Mysore and Tumkur. Selected blocks in the city of Pune (Maharashtra) are also proposed to be covered under the pilot.

Based on the outcome of the pilot studies, a nationwide rollout would be taken up in a phased manner.

Further, as the OMCs already have a ready database of LPG customers, they are prepared to undertake the independent projects for domestic LPG anywhere in the country as per the scheduling of UIDAI.

Courtesy: INN