Union Minister of State Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) for Uttarakhand at Srinagar of Pauri district on Thursday. This marks one more step in the direction of providing lPG connections during the three financial years commencing from 2016-17 to five crore BPl families.
The PMUY was launched in the presence of Union minister of state for drinking water and sanitation Ram Kripal Yadav and four MPs - Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Mala Rajya lakshmi Shah, Ajay Tamta and leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt.
As a symbolic launch of the PMUY, eleven women from BPl families were handed over connections. Around 100 BPl families were given lPG connections under the PMUY scheme on this day. The identification of BPl families will be made on Social Economic Caste Census (SECC)- 2011 data.
In his address Pradhan said, “Today is a red letter day for Uttarakhand. The state is blessed because of various significant revolutions like the Chipko Movement. To ensure that the poor of India get lPG connection, the Government has worked hard. Women residing in hilly areas find it difficult to procure fire wood for cooking. The Centre has decided to alleviate their problems and lend them a helping hand by providing them with lPG connections. There are plans to increase the number of distributorships up to 400 and increase the capacity of the existing bottling plants as well as examine the possibility of setting up small bottling plants in Srinagar and other hilly locations,” he said.
He further said that it is a difficult task to open a distributorship in a hilly area. “But the Government is determined to do its best to ensure that the women have clean fuel. Women and children suffer from health problems, because of use of firewood in cooking, something that reduces their life spans. Today, when I hand over gas connections to these women, they have tears of joy. We are strengthening the Government’s hands in promoting all these welfare schemes planned by the Prime Minister.”
The PMUY was was launched by the Prime Minister at Ballia (Uttar Pradesh) on May 1, 2016, to provide clean cooking fuel to women belonging to the BPl households across the country.
The scheme envisages tobe a game-changer as it could free poor households from the health hazards of inhaling smoke from chulhas (kilns) fuelled by firewood or dung. This is the first time in the history of the country that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas is implementing a welfare scheme benefitting crores of women belonging to the poorest households. In the process, the Ministry has given a pro-poor thrust to its agenda of governance, the minister said.
Invoking the Chipko Movement, Dharmendra Pradhan said that the names of Gaura Devi, Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunder lal Bahuguna would remain immortal in the psyche of the world for the contribution they made to the cause of environment.
He further said that there are only 241 distribution centers across Uttarakhand and in just two months, the figure would go up to 461. At the end of the 2016-17 financial year, 150 more distribution centers will come up in the remote areas of the mountainous districts of the state.
Minister Yadav dwelt on the achievements of the NDA government over the two years while claiming that they are acting on the pledges they made to the people. He cited a clutch of welfare schemes envisaged and executed by the Modi government- Jan Dhan Yojana, Jan Suraksha Yojana, Clean India Mission, Mudra Bank and PM Sarak Yojana. “We are working on the ground to remove poverty. Congress merely coined the catchy slogan of Garibi Hatao to dupe the poor into voting for it,” he added.