Seven Croreth LPG connection under PMUY Handed Over

The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan handed over the Seven Croreth LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). The PMUY was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 1st May 2016 with an initial target of five crore LPG connections, which was later revised upward to eight crores connections.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) aims to safeguard the health of women & children by providing them with a clean cooking fuel – LPG, so that they don’t have to compromise their health in smoky kitchens or wander in unsafe areas collecting firewood. Under this scheme, LPG connections will be provided to BPL families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection. The connection is provided in the name of the adult women of the family. Further, an option is provided to provide a loan at zero interest to bear the cost of the cooking stove and first refill which has to be paid by the beneficiary.
Some of the significant achievements of the scheme are:

• 7 crore LPG connections have been distributed over a span of 34 months. This comes down to around nearly 69 thousand connections are being released per day.
• 82 per cent PMUY beneficiaries are going for refilling their cylinder and average refilling is about 6.5 cylinders per beneficiary.
• About 42 per cent of the total beneficiaries belong to the SCs and STs.
• World Health Organisation (WHO) has acknowledged the PMUY as ne of decisive interventions by the Indian government to address the indoor air pollution which accounts for nearly 10 lakh (1 million) deaths every year across India.

Intitailly the beneficiaries under the scheme were identified through socio economic caste census, now all the poor of the country are now eligible to get PMUY connection. Further to give a fillip to the scheme 6800 new distributorships were given to strengthen rural LPG supply chain.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2019