CCEA approves Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

March 10, 2016

The Union Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) for providing free of cost LPG (cooking gas) connections to women from BPL Households.
This scheme will be implemented by Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. It will be for the first time ministry will be implementing a welfare scheme.
Under the scheme

  • Financial support of 1600 rupees for each LPG connection will be provided to the BPL households.
  • The identification of eligible BPL families will be made in consultation with the State Governments and the Union Territories.
  • It will be implemented over three years’ time frame namely in the FY 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
  • Government has earmarked 8000 crore rupees for providing five crore LPG connections to BPL households.

The PMUY seeks to empowering women and protecting their health by shifting them from traditional cooking based on unclean cooking fuels or on fossil fuels that have serious health hazards to clean cooking gas.
Background

  • Unclean cooking fuels are main source of indoor air pollution that causes non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.
  • They are also responsible for a significant number of acute respiratory illnesses in young children and BPL families are worst victims of unclean cooking fuels.
  • In India, the poor have limited access to LPG (cooking gas) which is predominantly found in the urban and semi-urban areas, mostly in middle class and affluent households.
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