The government is planning to reduce the multiple connections of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) connections in the same households across the country. According to the report, the government has planned to introduce the system to allow a household to have only a single LPG connection in coming days.

At present, a single LPG connection provides two cylinders and the system will be remained unchanged. The LPI (Regulation of Supply & Distribution) Order, 2000 will be amended by the government to reduce the multiplicity of LPI connections in the names of different family members in the same household.

The three marketing public sector units (PSUs) - IOL (including IBP), Bharat Petroleum and HPCL ‘ have already started the exercise to reduce the number of multiple connections. They would monitor that consumers do not take advantage of connections across the three companies. These companies are currently working on the process of data reconciliation.

Earlier, the Planning Commission had given a proposal to have income-tax paying consumers out Rs 480 for an LPG cylinder and to check the LPG use by reducing the number of cylinders to eight a year for the non-taxpaying consumers. However, the government found the plan as impractical.

The current existing subsidized price of a LPG cylinder is Rs 295. The petroleum ministry said in note, “The Planning Commission’s proposal to reduce the number of cylinders for non-income-tax payers is not practicable. It will face problems even at first step of implementation.”

As an alternative of a sudden price hike of Rs 180 per cylinder for PAN cardholder consumers, the government has planned to propose a moderate hike in the price for users of all categories.

Till date, the Indian Oil has already collected data about 27.9 lakh consumers having multiple connections and has blocked 4.3 lakh multiple connections across the country. HPCL has also identified 59.4 lakh consumers with multiple connections and of blocked 1.02 lakh connections.