Second phase of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana will be launched from Central Gujarat town of Dahod on Sunday in presence of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s national president Amit Shah, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and Chief Ministers of three States — Anandiben Patel (Gujarat), Shivraj Singh Chauhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Vasundhara Raje Scindia (Rajasthan).
Despite heatwave in the State and mercury almost touched 45 degree Celsius, around 1.5 lakh people are expected to attend the event. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is an ambitious social welfare scheme of Narendra Modi Government. Under the Rs8,000 crore PM Ujjwala Yojana, the Government aims to provide free lPG connections to BPl households in the country.
The scheme is aimed at replacing the unclean cooking fuels mostly used in the rural India with the clean and more efficient lPG (liquefied Petroleum Gas). The scheme is also banking on the treasury fund saved from the ‘Give it Up’ campaign, launched two years ago, urging affording gas users to voluntarily forfeit their lPG subsidies.
Meanwhile tight security arrangement has been made as most of the VVIPs coming to attend the event including Amit Shah, the union minister and three Chief Ministers are covered under Z plus security. Tribal district Dahod has been chosen for the launch of the scheme
for three States –Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan — as the impoverished tribal belt has the least number of families that use cooking gas.
Under the scheme free lPG connections will be given in the name of women in BPl (Below Poverty line) households across the country. The government has set a target of 5 Crore lPG connections to be distributed to the BPl households across the country.
Some of the main objective of the schemes are: Empowering women and protecting their health, assisting in cutting short the issue of the air pollution due to use of fossil fuel, reducing the serious health hazards associated with cooking based on fossil fuels, reducing the number of deaths in India due to unclean cooking fuels, which is about 5 lakh every year in India, preventing young children from significant number of acute respiratory illnesses caused due to indoor air pollution by burning the fossil fuels.