Jammu, December 28: After a sustained campaign to let well settled consumers to surrender their LPG subsidy on their own evoking good response but still short of the desired results the government has finally taken the next logical step to stop subsidy to the consumers earning more than 10 lakhs a year.
The subsidy is a huge burden on the exchequer and has stalled development badly even though previous regimes never tried to abolish it fearing backlash by the electorate.
However Narendra Modi who has a vision for India has rightly asked the citizens to surrender the subsidy and contribute more in the nation building even as many skeptics are still not favoring the idea asking MPs to surrender their subsidized food at Parliament first.
Even though the argument is good but those who want to contribute to the nation building doesn’t stop and see whether others do it and instead believe in the axiom ‘charity begins at home’.
What these skeptics forget is that they spent thousands on fast food every month but don’t want to let a few hundred go on gas subsidy indicating the salve mentality where we have been trained to live on government doles instead of standing upright like responsible citizens.
The burden on state exchequer can be gauged from the fact that the subsidy payout on LPG in 2014-15 was Rs 40,551 crore, which this fiscal will be less than half as oil prices have slumped to a six-year low. During April-September, the subsidy outgo was Rs 8,814 crore.
Now with this decision the tax payers with annual income of more than Rs 10 lakh will not get subsidized cooking gas (LPG) from next month as the government on Monday decided to limit supply of under-priced fuel to cut subsidies.
At present, all households are entitled to get 12 cylinders of 14.2-kg each at subsidized rate of Rs 419.26, while the market price is Rs 608.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the public at large to those who can afford LPG to voluntarily give up using subsidized LPG and instead buy cooking fuel at market price so that the subsidies can be passed on to those in dire need.
Hence it is indeed a good step as those who can earn more than Rs 10 lakh a year have every facility at home that costs much more than what they pay for a gas cylinder but still don’t want to surrender the subsidy.
Infact there are many believers who feel that any kind of subsidy or reservation must go altogether from India if at all it wants to develop as a global leader for which our Prime minister is striving hard.
Every citizen must introspect and analyze who actually needs such subsidies and why they should cling on to it thus preventing development of India and relief to poorest of the poor.
The government of India has taken a right decision and next step should be to abolish the subsidy of all the APL ration card holders to make the subsidy a real component of growth instead of underdevelopment. Those above poverty line don’t need subsidies while those below the poverty line hardly get anything better due to such subsidies being misused by the affluent class.
Let us support the policy and contribute to nation building.