The government has laid the blame for the non-payment of LPG subsidies in some cases at the door of Airtel Payments Bank.
An internal analysis by ministry of petroleum and natural gas has identified that a majority of customers who faced problems of non-credit of subsidy payments have an account in Airtel Payments Bank, a new kind of bank operated by telecom firm Airtel.
According to a ministry statement, hundreds of LPG consumers had complained about non-credit of subsidy amount into their accounts during the past few weeks. “On verification, it was found that these complaints mainly pertain to those LPG consumers who are Airtel customers and have opened accounts in Airtel Payments Bank,” the statement explained.
The transfer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) subsidy directly into bank accounts falls under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s PAHAL scheme. The scheme is being implemented by the oil marketing companies through their network of 18,786 LPG distributors.
Clarifying further, the ministry said subsidy of Airtel Payments Bank users was already credited. “It may be noted that as per subsidy transfer protocol, the LPG subsidy is transferred to the (latest) bank account of the beneficiary seeded with their Aadhaar,” the statement added.
“To redress the inconvenience caused to LPG consumers, the ministry and OMCs have already taken up the matter with the concerned authorities in Department of Financial Services (Ministry of Finance), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Airtel,” the ministry added.
Airtel, a telecom services provider, recently ventured into payments bank services.
According to data provided by the ministry of petroleum, 2346 lakh LPG consumers use services of state-run OMCs.
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