The Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (PMUY) was launched at Shri Krishna Memorial Hall, Patna. Ramvilas Paswan, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and IT, Radha Mohan Singh, Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Minister of State (I/c), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and Parliamentary Affairs, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (I/c), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ram Kripal Yadav, MoS, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Giriraj Singh, MoS, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Upendra Kushwaha, MoS, Ministry of HRD, Jitan Ram Manjhi, ex-Chief Minister, Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, leader of opposition, Bihar legislative Council, Prem Kumar, leader of opposition, Bihar legislative Assembly and distinguished guests including Members of Parliament, members of Bihar legislative Assembly and council besides senior officials from MoPNG and oil industry graced the occasion. Forty women from BPl families from the state were handed over lPG connections by the dignitaries to mark the launch of the PMUY in the state.
launching the Yojana in Bihar, Pradhan said that the scheme would impact the lives of women from BPl families in a major way by reducing the drudgery of cooking with polluting fuels and go a long way in reducing indoor pollution and other health related problems being faced by them. He said that the main mantra of PMUY is ‘Mahilaon Ko Mila Samman, Swacch Indhan-Behtar Jeevan’. Under this scheme, 5 Cr lPG connections will be provided to BPl households. Over the next three years, Rs8,000 crore will be provided by Govt. of India with a matching contribution of Rs8,000 crore by the OMCs. The later will be utilised for extending interest-free loans to such poor families. The PMUY scheme is aimed at replacing the unclean cooking fuels mostly used in rural India with more clean and efficient lPG (liquefied Petroleum Gas). The scheme aims at empowering women and protecting their health and reducing the number of deaths in India due to use of unclean cooking fuels. Analysis of SECC data reveals that Bihar would be major beneficiary of the Ujjawala scheme.
While dwelling on the steps taken to expand the coverage of oil and gas sector in Bihar, he said that with 8 existing lPG bottling plants, upcoming two plants — one by IOCl at Banka and one at Saugli Dist by HPC and capacity augmentation in existing plants by all the three OMCs, Government is committed to provide world class services to existing 68.35 lakh lPG customers of Bihar. The 20 lakhs customers have been provided with lPG connections in last two years and another 60 lakhs will be done in the coming three years taking the total to 1.3 crore customers.
During the course of his speech, he told that many districts in Bihar have lPG penetration less than 20 per cent. He told that endeavor will be made to increase the penetration to provide relief to women from disease and smoke.