Budget 2018: Ujjwala scheme created confidence in country's poor women, says Pradhan

In the Budget 2018, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today raised the target of beneficiaries under Ujjwala scheme to 8 crore, besides proposing lowering female employees' provident fund contribution to 8 per cent for the first three years.

About the Ujjwala scheme Jaitley said: "We launched the scheme to make poor women free from the smoke of wood. Initially our target was to provide free LPG connections to about 5 crore poor women.

Dharmendra Pradhan, Petroleum & Natural Gas Min said the scheme has created new confidence among the poor women of the country – it is catalyst of social change. Lot of health issues have bene resolved, he said.

Talking about the subsidy regime, he said government will not go back to subsidy regime and that this is an era of empowerment.

Talking about bringing petroleum products under GST, he said India being a consuming country, the government has all the intention of consumers’ interest in mind and there are ways and means of doing that -- GST is one of the effective ways, I think the states must also agree that petroleum products should come under GST.