Question : LPG Consumers

(a) the total number of LPG consumers in the country and the steps taken to increase LPG coverage ratio in all rural/urban areas including to appoint LPG distributors at Panchayat/village level in proportion to target fixed in this regard, State/UT-wise;
(b) whether there is acute shortage and mismatch in the demand and supply of LPG cylinders in several States and if so, the steps taken/being taken by the Government to remove the shortage and appoint sufficient of LPG distributors in such States to meet the demand, State/UT-wise;
(c) the number of cases of inadequate door to door service/irregular and delayed home delivery, black-marketing, diversion of cylinders for commercial purpose, overcharging for LPG, underweight/ pilferage of gas reported/noticed by the Government during the last three years and the current year, State/UT-wise; and
(d) the number of said cases identified against the distributors/officials involved therein and raids conducted to detect/expose such irregularities along with the action taken thereon including cancellation of distributorship during the said period, State/ UT-wise?

MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) IN THE MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM & NATURAL GAS (SHRI DHARMENDRA PRADHAN)
(a) As on 01.01.2017, total active domestic LPG customers in the country are 19.16 crore. With a view to provide LPG connections to poor households, the Government has launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) for release of 5 crore new LPG connections over a period of three years starting from 2016-17 to BPL households identified through SECC data.
Appointment of LPG distributorships is a continuous process and locations for setting up of LPG distributorships are identified based on available refill sale potential that makes them economically viable. State/UTs-wise details of existing LPG distributorships are at Annexure-I
In the current financial year 2016-17, Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have advertised for setting up 1531 new distributorships in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Punjab. 56 new distributorships under Durgam Kshetriya Vitrak (DKV) category have been sanctioned to the agencies of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh Government. As on 29.01.2017, 1053 Letters of Intent (LOIs) have been given to selected applicants and 619 new distributorships have been commissioned in the current financial year.
(b) OMCs have reported that they endeavour to meet the genuine demand of LPG consumers within 48 hours. However, delay in refill supplies may occur in the event of backlog due to non-availability of filled LPG cylinders with the distributors for unavoidable reasons, road breaches, floods, strikes, incidents of bandhs, shortage of bulk LPG, non-availability of trucks, etc. and in such situations, bottling plants work on extended hours as well as on holidays to clear the backlog.
(c) & (d) Under the erstwhile RGGLV Scheme, LPG distributorships were not required to provide home delivery to their customers. Now, all existing RGGLV distributorships with monthly refill sale of more than 1500 are being treated as ‘Gramin Vitrak’ in accordance with Unified Guidelines for Selection of LPG Distributorships 2016 and with mandatory home delivery facility.
State/UT-wise details of established cases of malpractices/irregularities by OMCs distributorships during the last three years and in the current year (from April, 2016 to December 2016) are at Annexure-II.
In all established cases of irregularities, action is taken by OMCs as per the provisions of Marketing Discipline Guidelines and Distributorship Agreement. State/UT-wise details of LPG distributorships terminated by OMCs due to irregularities during 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16 & April 2016 to December, 2016 are at Annexure-III.