Oil Minister Murli Deora on Friday said the government would offer Rs 1,400 subsidy per LPG connection to BPL families in rural areas as part of its effort to increase the reach of cooking fuel among the poor.

“The proposed subsidy will be available to the new connections being offered under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural LPG Distribution Scheme,” Deora told reporters in Mumbai.

Significantly, the Minister refused to take any question on the Cairn-Vedanta deal.

The British energy major Cairn and domestic firm Vedanta are waiting for the government nod for their USD 9 billion sale agreement inked in mid-August.

The Minister also declined to comment on media reports that the state-run power utility NTPC may go in for an out-of -court settlement with Reliance on its gas pricing row.

Under the Vision-2015, the ministry has an ambitious plan to further expand penetration of cooking gas to 16 crore households from the present 12.2 crore, covering 75 percent of the households, said Deora.

Additional Secretary Sudhir Bhargava said most of this higher growth will come from rural areas as well as the Northeast, where LPG penetration is poor.

On the prevailing LPG shortage, Bhargava further said, by 15th December, distribution will be normalised.

He attributed the shortages to festive demands, unseasonal rains in many parts, higher demand from the North due to the winter demand besides panic booking by consumers and said oil marketers are working on a war-footing to normalise the supply.

Deora said the country will have to import 3.9 million tonnes or 32 percent more cooking gas this fiscal to meet the growing demand and pointed out that the number of LPG connection has grown nearly three times since 1999 when there were only 3.81 crore consumers, to 12.2 crore now.

While domestic production of the cooking fuel has gone up to 10.2 million tonnes last fiscal, up from 7.6 mt in FY06, demand has gone up much faster and is projected to reach 13.96 mt this fiscal, he said and added that “LPG demand is projected to touch 19.2 mt by the turn of 2015.”

About 86 lakh new connections were released in the last fiscal while till 1st November this year, 57.5 lakh new connections were allotted, taking the penetration to 55 percent of the population, the minister said.

He also said, with 12.2 crore connections, the country has the largest LPG distribution network in the world, forcing oil companies to deliver 25 lakh cylinders a day through a network of 9,700 distributors.

Joint Secretary-Marketing Apurv Chandra said the oil ministry has already tied up with the UID Authority to adopt biometric distribution model of LPG with a view to further streamline the distribution model.

Under this, the ministry has already started pilot projects in seven districts in Andhra Pradesh, Mysore and adjoining areas in Karnataka, Pune in Maharashtra and Chandigarh.

“The project will be extended to more areas soon,” Chandra said.