Minister for State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas held a press conference on the occasion of more than 1 Cr. connections being released under the ambitious scheme of Honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi to provide deposit free LPG connections in the name of women of BPL families in the country under “Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana”.
It was informed by the Honourable Minister that in a short span of 6 months of implementation of the scheme, 638 districts of 35 States/UTs are covered under the scheme and more than 1.81 Cr. applications are received. Out of which 1.5 crore applications have been cleared and 1.01 crore connections are already given to the beneficiaries. Top 5 States which have accounted for maximum number of connections released under the scheme include Uttar Pradesh (34.55 lakh), Madhya Pradesh(13.32 lakh), Rajasthan (12.94 lakh), Bihar (10.34 lakh) and West Bengal (7.66 lakh). Further, the districts of Sitapur (1.29 lakh), Allahabad (1.26 lakh), Kushinagar (1.16 lakh), Unnao (87,752) and Gonda (84,173) topped the list of districts with highest number of connections released.
On an average, 22 – 25 lakh new connections are released every month across the country under PMUY. Further analysis of the refill purchase status of the beneficiaries revealed that more than 80% of the beneficiaries have purchased their refills. The major beneficiaries of this scheme are from weaker sections of the society i.e. SC/ST who accounted for 44% of the connections released.
The Minister also informed that a massive safety awareness campaign will be carried out over a period of 4 months starting from November to educate all LPG consumers on importance of safety following norms.