India, March 17 -- Amid the ongoing cooking gas crisis in the country due to the West Asia conflict, the Union petroleum ministry on Tuesday clarified that biometric Aadhaar authentication for electronic know your customer (e-KYC) beneficiaries is only needed for "unauthenticated" LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) customers.

India has over 330 million LPG customers, including 105.1 million Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries. The eKYC is, however, mandatory for a PMUY beneficiary to get a deposit-free LPG connection.

"The requirement of eKYC applies to those LPG consumers who have not done eKYC so far. If you are a non-PMUY customer and have done it before, you don't need to do it again," the ministry said in a social media p...