Hyderabad: Soon one can buy small cooking gas cylinders from the ration shop near his home. There is a government proposal to sell the small cooking gas cylinders from public distribution shops (PDS).
In an official meeting, the Government of India’s Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey proposed to sell small gas cylinders from PDS shops.
The Food Secretary proposed to sell small 5 kgs LPG cylinders from the ration shops. The officials of oil marketing companies also attended this meeting and supported this proposal.
Currently, the mini LPG cylinders in the country are sold at retail outlets to the consumer through government oil companies like Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, and Hindustan Petroleum.
The Representatives of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Petroleum and Ministry of Electronics were also present in this meeting. The states were advised to take this proposal forward and make changes according to their needs.
According to official sources, the states were asked to apprise the owners of the ration shops about the benefits of this proposal so that it can be implemented.
There are 5.32 lakh ration or fair price shops whose main role is to distribute subsidized foodgrains to the 80 crore beneficiaries covered by the National Food Security Act. The Centre is looking to use this network for introducing the retail sale of the cylinders.