{
 "no": 57,
 "id": "case-57",
 "sk": 20230301,
 "year": 2023,
 "date": "Price peak 01 Mar 2023",
 "cat": "Consumer harm",
 "sev": "amber",
 "title": "The cylinder. Subsidy withdrawn, refills never came",
 "stamp": "No answer for the empty cylinders",
 "human": {
  "v": "<b>10.33 crore</b> Ujjwala connections issued, but a CAG audit found average consumption of <b>3.21</b> refills a year, and <b>17.61%</b> of beneficiaries — about <b>56 lakh</b> households — never returned for a second refill at all",
  "est": false
 },
 "cost": {
  "v": "Domestic LPG subsidy fell from <b>₹46,458 cr</b> in 2013-14 to <b>₹1,811 cr</b> in 2021-22. The Delhi cylinder went from <b>₹414</b> subsidised in Jan 2014 to a <b>₹1,103</b> market peak in Mar 2023",
  "est": false
 },
 "what": "A connection is not a kitchen. Ujjwala put a cylinder in more than ten crore homes, but the CAG's 2019 audit found beneficiaries were buying 3.21 refills a year against the three to four the scheme assumed, and that consumption was falling, not rising. Nearly 56 lakh households never bought a second cylinder. In Chhattisgarh the average was 1.61. Meanwhile the general subsidy was wound down until transfers effectively stopped in mid-2020, and the market price nearly tripled from the 2014 subsidised rate.",
 "dodge": "The audit also found that poor refill uptake among 92 lakh loanee consumers blocked recovery of ₹1,234.71 crore in outstanding loans, and recorded 3.44 lakh instances of oil companies issuing between 2 and 20 refills in a single day to households holding one cylinder. No official has answered for a scheme measured in connections issued rather than in cooking fuel actually burned, and the headline count kept being announced while the refill data went unmentioned.",
 "ministers": [
  {
   "n": "Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas",
   "r": "Owns Ujjwala and LPG pricing; reports connections, not sustained use"
  }
 ],
 "pos": "The government's position is that India imports over 60% of its LPG so prices track international markets, that it shielded consumers by letting oil companies absorb losses and compensating them ₹22,000 crore, and that it passed on only an 89.7% price rise against a 235% rise in Saudi contract prices. It says Ujjwala took coverage from 62% to near-saturation, that a ₹300-a-cylinder targeted subsidy for up to nine refills holds the effective price near ₹35 a kg, and that per-capita refill consumption has since risen from 3.01 in 2019-20 to 4.34 annualised in 2024-25.",
 "alleg": "The common comparison of ₹414 in 2014 against about ₹1,100 today is <em>not like-for-like</em>: the first is a subsidised quota price under a scheme that no longer exists, the second an unsubsidised market price.",
 "alt": "A scheme audited on refills rather than connections, published per-household consumption data, and a subsidy that survives contact with the price it was meant to offset.",
 "sources": [
  {
   "label": "RS Q1264: ₹414 in 2014 against ₹1,103",
   "url": "https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/260/AU1264.pdf?source=pqars",
   "tier": 1,
   "archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250724005725/https://sansad.in/getFile/annex/260/AU1264.pdf?source=pqars"
  },
  {
   "label": "LS Q3711: LPG prices and subsidy, 2013-22",
   "url": "https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1711/AU3711.pdf?source=pqals",
   "tier": 1,
   "archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240714073403/https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1711/AU3711.pdf?source=pqals"
  },
  {
   "label": "CAG 2019 audit of Ujjwala refills",
   "url": "https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2019/Chapter_6_Transition_of_BPL_households_to_LPG_of_Report_No_14_of_2019_Performance_Audit_of_Pradhan_Mantri_Ujjwala_Yojana_Ministry_of_Petroleum_and_Natural_Gas.pdf",
   "tier": 1,
   "archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20240615221459/https://cag.gov.in/uploads/download_audit_report/2019/Chapter_6_Transition_of_BPL_households_to_LPG_of_Report_No_14_of_2019_Performance_Audit_of_Pradhan_Mantri_Ujjwala_Yojana_Ministry_of_Petroleum_and_Natural_Gas.pdf"
  },
  {
   "label": "PIB: 10.33 crore Ujjwala connections",
   "url": "https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?lang=1&PRID=2198768&reg=3",
   "tier": 1,
   "archiveUrl": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260210001340/https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2198768&reg=3&lang=1"
  }
 ],
 "caseUrl": "https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-57/"
}