Based on my experiences living in India and seeing several such allocation policies, I found this 6 cylinder cap another corruption scam in making. Somehow, people in India are too smart and try and work around the system.
I found two articles giving different viewpoints:
- For the move: BS edit says it gives lessons on transparency. It says the govt. created a website showing LPG usage before the reform. This helped create awareness on the misuse and build public support for the need to cap the cylinders.
In a press release yesterday, Oil Marketing cos said based on this database, they saw around 44% of population uses around 6 cylinders per year. Hence, the number.
- Against the move: Bibek Debroy in this funny piece calls it a policy that cannot be policed. He makes up a nice story on how in order to help his driver learn he tries several interventions and in the end the driver remains same..he relates this similar to the diesel story (and several other govt. policies) which only lead to worse outcomes.
Both give different sides of the debate. Using IT is welcome to usher transparency but frankly such policies do not help despite the best intention. One will soon hear stories on how we gamed the system to keep milking subsidised cylinders..
It would have been better if government released some note/paper explaining this 6 cylinder rationale and how they will ensure it will work..
