(FE)
The government may not pay around Rs 32,000 crore of kerosene and LPG subsidy dues for FY19 before March end, in a bid to meet the revised fiscal targets. The total bill for LPG subsidy under direct benefit transfer and kerosene for the current financial year has come to Rs 36,500 crore. Of this, Rs 4,000 crore is on account of kerosene and the rest Rs 32,500 crore is due to LPG.
After adding the carried forward amount from last year, the total subsidy demand for the current year comes to around Rs 48,500 crore. However, the petroleum ministry has received just Rs 16,500 crore for the year to settle the subsidy amounts payable to the oil marketing companies and may not get any more before the fiscal end, sources said.
The revised estimate for the petroleum subsidy bill for FY19 is Rs 24,943 crore. “Whatever has been allocated in the ensuing year, it will be insufficient to liquidate the current year’s bill,” a source said. The lower allocation was partly due to the Rs 20,000-crore provision made towards income support scheme for small and marginal farmers in the March 2019 quarter.
