The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has written to State governments seeking their support to achieve the eight crore free cooking gas connection distribution target under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).
The Centre wants to complete this goal within 100 days of the new government coming to power.
It is expected that this goal will be achieved by August itself as the Centre is now very close to this goal of eight crore connections.
According to officials, 7.5 crore poor households have got access to clean cooking fuel under PMUY as per the latest data. LPG penetration across the country has now reached 95 per cent as against 56 per cent in May 2014. There were 13 crore LPG connections till May 2014, now access to LPG has doubled to more than 26 crore households. Till March this year, the Centre has disbursed over seven crore Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) connections under the PMUY scheme. An official statement said the target was achieved within 34 months of the scheme’s launch (in May 2016).
Under the PMUY scheme, a deposit-free LPG connection is provided to a poor household and the connection is released in the name of an adult woman member of the household.
Initially recipients of deposit-free LPG were hesitant to opt for a refill due to the high costs but the trend is now changing, according to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
In the Lok Sabha, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, oil marketing companies have reported nearly 86 per cent of PMUY beneficiaries who are at least one year old have returned for the second refill... and they have are offering swap facility — providing 5 kg cylinder against 14.2 kg as per the requirement.