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PRADHAN MANTRI UJJWALA YOJANA

Young Bites. Dated: 4/12/2018 10:10:07 AM

India is home to more than 24 Crore households out of which about 10 Crore households are still deprived of LPG as cooking fuel and have to rely on firewood, coal, dung – cakes etc. as primary source of cooking. The smoke from burning such fuels causes alarming household pollution and adversely affects the health of Women & children causing several respiratory diseases/ disorders. As per a WHO report, smoke inhaled by women from unclean fuel is equivalent to burning 400 cigarettes in an hour. In addition, women and children have to go through the drudgery of collecting firewood.
Under this scheme, 5 Cr LPG connections will be provided to BPL families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection in the next 3 years. Ensuring women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections will be issued in the name of women of the households. Rs. 8000 Cr. has been allocated towards the implementation of the scheme. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio Economic Caste Census Data. While the connection charges of Rs 1600/- will be reimbursed by the Government of India , OMCs would provide the option of EMI to interested beneficiaries towards the cost of stove and first supply of gas. OMCS will recover the EMI from the subsidy amount payable to consumer for each refill.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launched country-wide Pradhan Mantri LPG Panchayat scheme to distribute LPG connections among rural areas where conventional fuel is used for domestic purposes. The scheme was launched by Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan at Mota Ishanpur village in Gandhinagar district in Gujarat. It is backup scheme to existing Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on 1.05. 2016 in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh and subsequently the scheme was launched on 15.05.2016 in Dahod (Gujarat) by Hon’ble MOS(I/C) MOP&NG and was attended by Hon’ble Chief Ministers of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. After this several state & district level launches were conducted in Srinagar (Uttarakhand), Faizabad (UP), Sambalpur (Odissa), Lucknow (UP) , Patna ( Bihar) and Shahdol (MP) which were flagged by Hon’ble MoS I/c P&NG and other Central and state Ministers
.The scheme aims to provide LPG connections without security deposit to 50 million women from BPL households over the next three years, using the money saved from 1 crore 13 lakh cooking gas users voluntarily giving up their subsidies. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in New Delhi Under it gas connections will be distributed to identified beneficiary women in the national capital. The scheme’s motive is to provide free of cost LPG (cooking gas) connections to women from BPL Households will get cash assistance to beneficiaries to get a deposit-free new connection. The scheme aims to empower women and protect their health by shifting them from traditional cooking based on unclean cooking fuels or on fossil fuels or on fossil fuels to clean cooking gas. It is first social welfare scheme implemented by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. In February 2018, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had approved to enhance target base of PMUY from 5 crore to 8 crore. The revised target of PMUY will be achieved by 2020 with an additional allocation of Rs. 4,800 crore. The decision comes in the wake of huge response to PMUY from the women particularly in rural areas and to cover such households not having LPG connection. Besides, expanding target base of scheme, Cabinet also approved proposal to expand scheme to cover all SC/ST households, beneficiaries of Antyoday Anna Yojana (AAY), PMAY (Gramin), forest dwellers, most backward classes (MBC), Tea and Ex-Tea Garden Tribes, people residing in Islands and rivers etc. in addition to SECC identified households. This move will address practical difficulty faced in implementation of PMUY, namely, targeting genuinely poor households left out of Socio Economic Caste Survey (SECC) list. It is first social welfare scheme implemented by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Under this scheme, 5 Cr LPG connections will be provided to BPL families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection in the next 3 years. Ensuring women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections will be issued in the name of women of the households. Rs. 8000 Cr. has been allocated towards the implementation of the scheme. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio Economic Caste Census Data.
The LPG Panchayat scheme aims at spreading awareness among LPG users about how to properly use clean fuel and its useful benefits. It will provide platform to trigger discussion through sharing of personal experiences on benefits of use of clean fuel compared to traditional fuels like cowdung, charcoal or wood. It also aims to connect with beneficiaries of Ujjwala Yojana to resolve issues and wrong traditional beliefs among people through officials of oil PSUs, NGOs, Asha workers and social workers. Under it, one lakh LPG Panchayats will be activated across country to deal with issue of safe use of LPG as well as discuss its various benefits on environment, health and how it empowers women. LPG Panchayat will serve as an interactive platform between those who received LPG cylinders under PMUY. One panchayat will have around 100 LPG customers of nearby areas. The panchayats discuss issues such as safe practices, quality of service provided by distributors and availability of refill cylinders. The number of beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana for providing free of cost LPG (cooking gas) connections to BPL households has crossed 2 crore mark since its launch in May 2016 . The Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016 from Maldepur Morh, Ballia in Uttar Pradesh.Under the scheme, an adult woman member of a BPL will be given deposit-free LPG connection with financial assistance of Rs 1,600 per connection by the Centre. Identification of beneficiaries will be through the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) in consultation with state governments and Union territories. It is first welfare scheme implemented by the Ministry. 8,000 crore has been earmarked for providing 5 crore LPG connections to poor households within 3 years by 2019. The Union Ministry for Petroleum & Natural Gas has met the 1.5-crore target for LPG connections that were to be added under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in the 2016-17 financial year. This Target was achieved within a span of less than eight months since the launch of the scheme which is implemented across 35 States/UTs. Since the launch of the PMUY, the LPG coverage across the country has increased to 70% as of December 1, 2016 from earlier 61% as of January 1, 2016. The households belonging to SC/ST constitute the large chunk of beneficiaries of this scheme with 35% of the connections being released to them. J&K, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and all North-East States. They have been identified as priority States for implementing PMUY.. It is being implemented over three years’ time frame i.e. in the FY 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 with budgetary allocation of allocated Rs, 8,000 crore. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio Economic Caste Census Data. 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.PMUY was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016 with the tagline of Swachh Indhan, Behtar Jeevan.