Over 10 mn households gave up LPG subsidy on PM Modi's appeal: Dharmendra Pradhan

New Delhi [India], Mar. 05 (ANI): Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said more than 10.5 million households have given up their Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) subsidy on the appeal made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The minister said people gave up their subsidy after Prime Minister Modi appealed to those who could afford the cooking gas to leave their subsidy. "More than 10.5 million households gave up their LPG subsidy. This will help the government to provide subsidy to the needy," said Pradhan while speaking at Harvard Kennedy School in the United States. Emphasizing on the government's goal to provide subsidy to the poor, the minister talked about the Centre's initiative for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in LPG subsidy. Pradhan also said after the success of DBT in LPG, the government is planning to use the same in Kerosene. "At one point of time, the government thought subsidy should be for the poor, for the downtrodden, but how do we do it. We have created a gateway which is known as PAHAL, Hindi name for DBT," said Pradhan. The minister also enlightened the students with another initiative of the government to create a subsidy movement in India. "JAM trinity: Jan Dhan Account, Aadhaar number and Mobile, is a new weapon to create targeted subsidy movement in India," he said. Earlier in the day, while speaking at the 2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Conference, Pradhan said despite demonetisation India will continue its momentum and achieve an eight percent growth in 2017. "Last November, we demonetised 85 percent of our currency in circulation and even after that India's GDP continues to grow. According to recent data, growth for the September-December quarter stood at 7 per cent," he said. (ANI)