Industry Odisha Bureau, April 29: As the cloud of price-hike anticipations is already hovering over the Indian households and consumers owing to the ongoing West Asia standoff as well as the unresolved Hormuz hurdle, the Government of India (GoI) is most likely to hike further the prices of both domestic and commercial liquefied petroleum gas (LPG/cooking gas) cylinders from May 1.
Besides, GoI has also tightened up the LPG booking and delivery rules, especially OTP-based delivery authentication rule, and Aadhaar eKYC has been mandated for the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUJ) to avail subsidy.
Reportedly, an urban LPG consumer has to wait now for 25 days (earlier it was 21 days) from the booking day for delivery, while the rural counterpart has the delivery duration of maximum 45 days. OTP-based authentication delivery rule has been made a must as about 98 per cent of bookings are now made online, while the bona fide Ujjwala beneficiaries ought to ascertain Aadhaar eKYC once in a fiscal year to avail the government subsidy. On the other hand, the general LPG consumers need not undergo the mandated eKYC again and again if already complied once.
Since the volatility of global energy markets stay put, Indian LPG consumers are all agog to virtually taste the bitter pill of the next price revision from May 1 as the last phase of the Assembly Elections ends today (April 29).
Notably, the Indian oil marketing companies often effect price revision of LPG reportedly at the beginning of every month, and accordingly, the price of domestic LPG cylinder reportedly got hiked by Rs 60 this month (April), while Indian businessmen reportedly bore the brunt of multiple price hikes of commercial LPG cylinders, and even the allegedly inadequate supplies. In addition to the reportedly Rs 196 price rise in this month, the price of a 19 kg commercial LPG cylinder had reportedly got increased on March 1 by Rs 28-31 along with Rs 114.5 on March 7.
