Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu inaugurated the first international conference on lPG (cooking gas) here on Thursday in the presence of Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and senior Government officials.
Orgnaised by the Research and Development Initiative along with leading public sector oil companies, the conference was attended by more than 300 delegates from more than 10 countries. Murmu lauded the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Dharmendra Pradhan in ensuring access of lPG to the poorest of poor in rural areas.
She recounted her own past experience as a village dweller with no access to lPG. She emphasised that the Government’s intervention in the lPG sector would result in a significant improvement in the convenience of women.
Dharmendra Pradhan stressed upon changes in the narrative of lPG, which is being seen as a catalyst of social change and not as a source of profit. He also stressed on various initiatives taken by the Government of India to ensure the reach of lPG to households of rural India which is currently suffering very badly from indoor air pollution.
He informed that currently only 74 million people are using around 24 MT of lPG through a network of 18,000 distributors across the country.
He expressed confidence that the conference would provide a necessary roadmap to learn and adopt the best practices from across the globe.
UN Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director UN Women lakshmi Puri elaborated the United Nations’ vision to provide clean and green sustainable energy to everyone. She stressed upon economic growth, social justice and environmental sustainability. Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Secretary KD Tripathi welcomed the delegates from various countries.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman Ram Sewak Sharma, IOC Chairman B Ashok, BPCl Chairman and Managing Director S Varadarajan and HPCl Chairman and MD MK Surana also attended the conference.
The two-day seminar would deliberate on the need for an lPG-enabled household, problems arising due to absence of lPG connection, usage of traditional biomass cooking fuels and their impact on both health and environment.