The UPA Government, eyeing gains in general elections, has planned to implement direct cash transfer of cooking gas subsidy to 70 million customers in 289 districts by January next year.

"The Government has decided to extend the direct benefit transfer for liquefied natural gas or LPG (DBTL) scheme in 235 more districts by Jan 1, 2014 in phases depending on Aadhaar penetration," an oil ministry spokesman said. With this, the Government will cover almost 50% of 140 million customers in the country, he said.

The scheme is already operational in 20 districts since June and 34 new districts have been added on September 1. Read More

Jyothi Shankaran

    Jyothi’s last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi is a chemical engineer from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.