The price of a non-subsidised 14.2 kg LPG cylinder was ₹858 in New Delhi in February 2020, compared to about ₹575 last August, a near 50 percent jump in prices. Simultaneously, the government has been forced to hike subsidies, raising the support price to ₹291.48 from ₹153. 86. For PMUY consumers, the subsidy borne by the government has jumped 78 percent to ₹312 per cylinder.
The government will also have to deal with the issue of refill consumption of PMUY consumers, which continues to decline—average refill consumption declined to 3 cylinders per year in FY19 from 3.9 in FY17. “Though PMUY has solved the availability problem, the affordability barrier still exists. The government must now focus on that,” says Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser at State Bank of India.
First Published: Feb 25, 2020, 11:00
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