Whereas the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) is billed to be the most successful social projects of the Narendra Modi Government across the country, the flagship scheme of the Union Petroleum and Natural Gas (PNG) Ministry has also made significant progress in Odisha, the home State of PNG Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The scheme may be the ‘brainchild’ of PM Modi, but its success has been mainly attributed to the hard work of Pradhan, who has also walked an extra mile to ensure that the scheme brings rich dividends for the BJP in his home State.
The BJP’s recent good performance in the Odisha rural polls was mainly an outcome of Ujjwala Yojana success.
Speaking to the media here about the PMUY performance in Odisha, BPCl lPG Deputy Manager (Sales) Subhadeep Debnath on Tuesday said lPG penetration under the scheme in Odisha is now about 43 per cent by May 1. “We have fixed the target to bring all the 60.88 lakh BPl households of the State as per the social, economic caste system census of 2011 in next three years,” he said.
He said around 10.88 lakh connections were released under he PMUY in Odisha till April 30, 2017 although 12.69 lakh cases have been cleared of the 13.9 lakh cases entered for new connections under the scheme. Ganjam district has recorded the maximum (1.09 lakh) connections cleared whereas Deogarh has the least (8,523) connections cleared by April 30.
Debnath, who is also the Cuttack district nodal officer of oil marketing companies, informed that Cuttack ranks second among the districts of the State for releasing maximum number of lPG connections under the scheme. “Out of the 1,05,656 entries for new connections in the district, 95,485 cases were cleared by April 30 and 84,530 connections by May 1.
Debnath said adding that lPG penetration among BPl families in the district has been targeted at 67 per cent. “We are hopeful to cover all the remaining households in next three years,” he asserted.