The Centre has set a target to provide lPG connections to 30 lakh BPl women in Odisha in the next three years and set up three lPG bottling plants in Khordha, Balangir and Jeypore. Besides, 10 lakh people in the non-BPl category would also be provided lPG.
“At present, 33 out of 100 families in Odisha have lPG connections. Efforts are on to increase the number of families to 75 in the next three years so that women do not have to waste their time for collection of firewood from forests,” said Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan while launching the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) at the PHD Ground here.
Stating that at present the State has nearly 6.5 lakh metric tonnes of bottling capacity, Pradhan said the capacities of the existing plants at Jharsuguda and Baleswar would be augmented.
“Keeping the market demand of the lPG in the next 30-40 years, the Indian Oil Corporation ltd (IOCl) would set up a lPG bottling plant on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar while the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation ltd (HPCl) and the Bharat Petroleum Corporation ltd (BPCl) would set up lPG bottling plants in Jeypore in Koraput district and Balangir district, respectively,” he informed.
He said permission to 180 new lPG distributors has been given. Now, there were 565 lPG distributors in the State. However, permission has been given to 180 new distributors.
Criticising the State Government, Pradhan said, “Some people are calling me as a postman Minister. But the postman has succeeded in checking the blackmarketing of lPG and cancelled 3.5 crore fake connections, which saved Rs21,000 crore.”
Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, BJP State president Basanta Panda, Kuchinda MlA Rabi Naik, Brjarajnagar MlA Radharani Panda, Padmapur MlA Pradeep Purohit and senior BJP leader Suresh Pujari were present.
However, though the BJD Sambalpur MP Nagendra Pradhan and Bargarh MP Prabhas Singh were invited, they did not turn up.