A fact finding project on LPG subsidy

This is something we could do and publish the results of in national interest. It is something that allows participation by all to whatever extent they find possible and results in a concrete resource.

Every day we hear numbers thrown around about how Aadhaar is saving the country a lot of money in LPG subsidies. From the sound of it, a hell of a lot of people have given up subsidy or "leaks" or "misuse" of the system have been arrested. Is this accurate?

Several individual cases have come to my attention when I mentioned that I was not able to add my bank account to my gas account to receive the subsidy. There are many people who have been unable to avail of the subsidy for reasons as varied as document/bank issues to delays in submitting bank/Aadhaar details to outright denial of subsidy to people without Aadhaar cards in direct contravention of the directions of the Supreme Court.

We could do a small project where individuals among us interview a lot of people/families about their LPG subsidy status, and record their responses as one out of the following:

1. Not eligible for subsidy (high income)
2. Given up subsidy
3. Receiving subsidy in bank account
4. Want subsidy, but not able to get
5. Not using gas or not applied for subsidy or other

Target area for further info is point 4. When someone says they want subsidy, but aren't getting, asking further questions to categorize their answer as one of the following:

4a. Document problems
4b. Lack of bank account
4c. Lack of Aadhaar causing denial
4d. Inability to connect bank account/Aadhaar for receiving money even when exists.
4e. Other

Every one of us who can do this, does it. For whatever scale they can. Be it campaigning entire neighbourhoods and slums, or just your building, or just asking friends or family or whoever you interact with, or just replying for your single family. Whatever scale. Anyone can participate to some or the other degree even if it is as simple as "I am option 5 - living in hostel, no gas."

Let us keep collecting the data till it is a significant number and once we hit a thousand results, publish a graph with the data and update that graph with further results as we keep collecting, with each thousand new entries.

In the end, we will have enough statistical information to have a view and statement about the government's claims about savings from LPG subsidy and whether they are coming from depriving eligible citizens of their right.

At the very least, we can publish a research that is less than perfect, but provides enough information to call for a professionally done survey.

This research could further be bolstered by publicly available data on subsidies and RTI queries for specific details like say.... change in number of people receiving subsidies in "X, Y, Z" localities which are poor and unlikely to voluntarily give up subsidy, etc.