Gandhinagar: More than 19 lakh connections have so far been given in Gujarat under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PM) which provides for free of cost LPG gas connection to poor woman and this scheme is seemingly faring better in Gujarat, the home state of PM Narendra Modi.

It is significant to mention that 87% of PMUY beneficiaries in the State have comeback for refill of LPG cylinder after release of connection and the average per capita consumption is 4.13 cylinders per year. This percentage as national average is only around 80% which means Gujarat is doing much better than the national average ie in comparison to many other states.

Addressing a joint press conference here S.S.Lamba, State Level Coordinator, Oil Industry and Executive Director, Gujarat State, Indian oil Corporation Ltd, informed it today.

He said that since inception of the scheme in 2016, a total of 6 crore LPG connections across India have been released till date of which Gujarat has a total 19.16 Lakh beneficiaries. The total number of overall connections in Gujarat was 93 lakh.

He informed that the public sector oil marketing companies would increase its distribution network by 286 in next 6 to 8 months. ‘In the last 4 years it has seen an increase of 200 in the number of distributors which has reached 810 and there would be an addition of 286,’ he said.

To a query he said that so far around 90%, (25 crore of the total 28 crore families in India) families have now got LPG connections. Currently of the total requirement of Rs 25 million tons of LPG, 11 MT is produced in India while remaining 14 is imported mainly from the middle east countries. 91% of the total LPG requirement is used for domestic purposes while the remaining is used for other purposes.

Lambha said that PMUY was launched in May 2016 with a target of 5 crore connections which was crossed 8 months ahead of schedule in August 2018. The Expanded EPMUY-2 with 3 more crore connections target has been launched and yesterday only 6 crore connection mark was crossed.

Last year, the scope of PMUY was extended to 7 new categories. Recently, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by the Prime Minister, has taken a decision to release deposit free LPG connections to poor families, who were not getting considered earlier under the scheme on account of their names not appearing either in Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) list or the 7 identified categories i.e. SC/STs households, beneficiaries of Pradhan MantriAwas Yojana(PMAY) (Gramin), Antyodaya Anna Yojana(AAY), Forest dwellers, Most Backward Classes (MBC), Tea & Ex-Tea Garden Tribes, people residing in Islands / river islands, he informed.
Now, the poor households who were deprived to avail the scheme benefits for want of not appearing in SECC list or not able to certify their eligibility in the seven categories; can avail the scheme benefits by submitting the KYC alongwith Aadhaar and bank account details of applicant, aadhaar details of adult family members, Ration Card and 14 point exclusion criteria declaration as per SECC, he said.

PMUY is a revolution which has removed smoke from the kitchens of the poor households in the country by providing them accessibility to clean cooking fuel LPG and making it one of the largest social inclusion initiative ever, Lambha added.

Talking about Gujarat he said that in the current year, Gas Industry has conducted more than 1860 LPG Panchayats in the state. 92.3% beneficiaries under the scheme who could not afford to make upfront payment for purchase of gas stove and first refill, were provided loan facility by the Oil Marketing companies. To make LPG affordable to poor families, OMCs have introduced 5KG refill option to Ujjwala beneficiaries where in Ujjwala beneficiary can swap her 14.2 Kg cyl.with 5 Kg refill and vice versa.

DeshGujarat