UID details to oil cos: Pune likely to miss deadline

Pune is likely to overshoot the February 25 deadline set for handing over the details of Aadhaar cards of gas consumers to oil companies for direct cash transfer of LPG subsidies. Faulty machines along with hiccups in appointing new agencies are said to be the impediments.

State LPG association head Usha Poonawalla said the process is very slow. "People come to our agencies to report that they are getting their Aadhaar numbers. It is unlikely that the deadline will be met," she said. The process has fallen behind as machines are not registering the names of those who have applied for Aadhaar cards.

Poonawalla said the rush for LPG booking has slightly subsided but the confusion about Aadhaar cards continue. The customers will get nine cylinders from next financial year and a total of five cylinders this year till March.

Agencies that are busy collecting Aadhaar forms say the projects linked to the cards and set to take off this year will suffer. The district administration had announced that the district collector will take the onus of appointing new agencies.

"The government is continuously changing its policies. We are already hassled to correct and update the subsidised and non-subsidised lists. The issue of Aadhaar card numbers has increased the paper work," said a gas agency owner.

So far, the BPCL has the Aadhaar details of only 40,000 customers out of the total 12.5 lakh cooking gas consumers in the district. HPCL accounts for 1 per cent of total customers and IOC 3 per cent.

Oil companies officials said the move to link other government schemes to Aadhaar cards was delaying the enrollment of LPG consumers.

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