Women got unprecedented benefits by free LPG connections : PM Narendra Modi at the virtual launch of Ujjwala 2.0

PM Modi chaired the UNSC high-level debate on maritime security on August 9

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 10 launched the Ujjwala scheme 2.0 handing over free LPG cylinder connections to beneficiaries from Mahoba district of the Bundelkhand region in Uttar Pradesh.

The Prime Minister also interacted with five beneficiaries of the first phase of the scheme through video conferencing on the occasion. As many as 8 crore women were benefited from the scheme in its first phase.

The PM said that after looking at the progress of the past seven-and-a-half decades, we definitely feel that there were some situations that could have been changed many decades ago.

“Home, electricity, water, toilet, gas, road, hospital, school, there are many such basic needs for which the countrymen had to wait for decades,” he said.

The event comes in the run-up to the UP  assembly elections, 2022. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityantha and Union  Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri were also present on the occasion.

The PM said that the scheme has benefited women’s lives in an unprecedented way.

"Our daughters will be able to come out of the house and kitchen and contribute extensively in nation-building only when the problems related to home and kitchen are solved first. Therefore, in the last 6-7 years, every such solution has been worked on a mission mode. Crores of toilets have been built across the country under Swachh Bharat Mission," the PM said.

Ujjwala Yojana, or the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), was launched in May 2016 by PM Modi as a flagship scheme. Its objective is to make clean cooking fuel, such as LPG, available to rural households. The scheme is said to have played a major role in Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in the UP assembly elections, 2017.

The PM said that the Ujjwala scheme has given great emphasis to this resolution of health, convenience, and empowerment of sisters. "In the first phase of the scheme, 8 crore poor, Dalit, deprived, backward, tribal families were given free gas connections. We have seen how much it has benefited during the Coronavirus,” he said

While 1000 women beneficiaries were present at the event, Chief Minister Adityanath formally handed over free LPG cylinder connections to ten women beneficiaries on the stage.

In the Union budget for FY 21-22, provision for an additional one crore LPG connection under the PMUY was announced. The one crore additional PMUY connections under Ujjwala 2.0 aim to provide deposit-free LPG connections to those low-income families who could not be covered under the earlier phase of PMUY.

The scheme, launched on May 1, 2016, from UP's Balia district, aims at safeguarding the health of women and children and lays the basis for a fundamental material transformation at the bottom of the pyramid by covering 715 districts.

Cash assistance is given to the beneficiaries to get a deposit-free new connection thereby helping improve energy access. Also, the connections are given in the name of the women heads of the households.

Along with a deposit-free LPG connection, Ujjwala 2.0 will provide the first refill and hotplate free of cost to the beneficiaries. Also, the enrollment procedure will require minimal paperwork.

In Ujjwala 2.0, migrants will not be required to submit ration cards or address proof. A self-declaration for both ‘family declaration’ and as a ‘proof of address will suffice.

India had 28.74 crore LPG consumers as of January 1, 2021, with the PMUY increasing India’s LPG coverage to 99.5 percent on  January 1,  from 61.9 percent as of April 1, 2016.