Over 100 women from BPl families were handed over lPG connections at Nunawala, Bhaniyawala in Dehradun on Saturday under Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (PMUY) by the Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister (Independent Charge), Dharmendra Pradhan.
Addressing the large gathering, Pradhan said that the scheme would positively impact the lives of the women from the BPl families by reducing the drudgery of cooking with polluting fuels, indoor pollution and other health related problems they have been facing. This scheme aims at providing five crore lPG connections to BPl households pan India in three years, he said.
He further said that the scheme aims at empowering women and protecting their health too while reducing the number of deaths in India due to use of polluting cooking fuels.
He said that the main mantra of PMUY is “Mahilaon Ko Mila Samman, Swacch Indhan-Behtar Jeevan”.
Pradhan also said that over 1.1 crore lPG connections have been released under PMUY in a short span of six months since it was nationally launched on May 1, 2016 at Balia in Uttar Pradesh.
He further said that over 60,000 lPG connections have been released under PMUY in Uttarakhand in a span of four months.
2016 being declared as the ‘Year of Consumers’, the Union minister said that the oil marketing companies (OMCs) are offering customer centric offerings like Sahaj – the online booking and release of new connections, the online booking and payment for lPG refills.
He said that under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has taken a series of people welfare oriented schemes.