Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana | Free LPG Gas Connection Scheme

A unique Indian central government scheme to extend availability of cooking gas to the women who belong to households that are Below Poverty Line (BPL). It is well known that India with its vast rural area have a huge population who are yet resorting to usage of cooking fuel that is both unclean as well as damaging to the environment at large. Due their low income status, such families are unable to afford the LPG which is used in other households.

Objective behind the Ujjwala Yojana Scheme

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme aims at bridging this gap by providing the LPG to families living in BPL for no cost. While the aim is to provide this clean cooking gas advantage to the entire family, it has a second aim and that is to empower the women of the country who run the household.

Below listed table elaborates the impact of using unclean fuels for cooking

S.No	Impact of Using unclean Cooking Fuel	Explanation
1	Climate Change	According to recently survey nearly 3 billion people all around the world uses Unclean / Improper fuel for their cooking. Owning to that Immense black carbon emitted which plays vital role in affecting earth climate by increasing heat waves and affects greenhouse gases.
2	Affects Household Air Pollution	World Health Organization recently announced that near about 4 million premature deaths are happened because of the increasing household air pollution. Household air quality mainly affects because of using improper/Unclean fuel for cooking in home.
3	Affects Women’s Health	In most cases, women’s are the one who gets serious impact over the impure air released from unclean cooking fuels. Studies examined that burning solid fuels for household cooking will results emitting lot of black carbon which is injurious for health.
4	Leads to Deforestation	Using solid fuel will results in deforestation which will leads to global eco system problem by affecting greenhouse gases. Often Deforestations increases heat waves and reduced rainfall amount globally.
5	Impact of Using Solid Biomass energy	In most cities of India uses Biomass Energy as their cooking fuel because of its cost efficiency. Since, biomass energy attained from living organisms waste presence of carbon storage will be high and result high smoke while burning.

The scheme therefore envisages providing the gas with the woman of the house being the direct beneficiary. Families living below poverty line, their women would be empowered by this scheme to apply and be the main subscriber of the free cooking gas supply.

The government has set aside 2000 crore in the current union budget to cater for this scheme and envisages to reach about 1.5 consumers in the scheme.

The various issues that Ujjwala Yojana would address therefore are:-

• Empowering the women of the country and giving them a place of respect in the family.
• Reducing air pollution that is caused by the emissions from using fossil fuel for cooking in these rural areas.
• Not only is there a damaging effect on the environment from the burning of fossil fuel, it also has enormous health hazard issues to the individuals. This factor too would be addressed by usage of LPG.
• India has a verified record of 5 lakh deaths occurring due usage of such unclean cocking agents. The project therefore envisages arresting this loss of human life.
• While there have been fatalities from usage of unclean fuel, another direct health hazard has been experienced by children in the rural area suffering from respiratory diseases. LPG usage is expected to eradicate this problem.

Eligibility criteria for Ujjwala Yojana

• The age limit for eligibility of the woman to apply for the scheme is 18 plus.
• Necessary that the applicant is a woman and belongs to the BPL group.
• The subsidy would be transferred to the applicant via bank transfer, and therefore the woman applicant has to have an account in any of the nationalized bank of the country.
• No other household member that the woman applicant belongs to must be an existing LPG subscriber.

Application for the Ujjwala Yojana PMUY scheme and Documents Required

• Form for applying for the scheme is available with all LPG distributors all over the country.
• The form is available free of cost
• Basic details like name, contact details, bank account details are to be filled in the application form.
• There is a set of mandatory documents that are to be attached to the application. These are
  

  • Panchayat or municipality issues BPL certificate
  • The BPL Ration Card of the woman
  • A Photo ID is required to be submitted which could be Aadhar Card or Voter ID Card
  • Passport Size Photograph of recent date
• There are two types of LPG cylinders of 15.2 kg and 5 kg which need to be specified by the applicant.
• Completed application form is to be handed over to the LPG distribution service provider itself.

Selection of the beneficiaries

Given the wide applicability of the scheme, the number of applicants is naturally expected to be far greater than the possible cover pack that the government has envisaged. For this reason, the official announcement and the paper on the PMUY indicates that the selection of beneficiaries would be based on economic conditions amongst the BPL groups too. For example SC/ST group people would be the first to receive the benefit. For the rest of the group, the division of number of cylinders being provided would depend on the particular state and its existing LPG distribution density. States that have a lower LPG coverage would be given higher priority in the PMUY LPG distribution scheme.

Funding

As mentioned before the center has set aside 2000 crore rupees for this project in the current FY. The project is expected to be spread over the next three years for its implementation stage and the total expenditure would be 8000 crore by then, as per estimates. Collection or generation of funds has been worked out from the scheme where people of higher income group have voluntarily agreed to give up their subsidy. Records indicate 1.5 crore people have given up their option to avail subsidy on LPG.

Facts about PM’s Ujjwala Yojana Scheme

S.No	Facts	Explanation
1	Free LPG Connections Under Ujjwala Yojana only for Woman	According to the Prime Minister’s statement, central government will offer free LPG connection under Ujjwala Yojana Scheme for woman’s from BPL families across the nation for next 3 years.
2	LPG Connections for 5 Crore BPL families with financial aid of Rs.1600 per family	NDA Government aims to offer free LPG connections for 5 crore BPL families across the nation, in order to provide clean cooking fuel and to control air pollution
3	Scheme helps for Natural Disaster Affected People	On considering the life’s of people from recently flood affected state tamil nadu. Central government asked state government to pursue free LPG connection under Ujjawala scheme for fishermen, coolies and for farmers too under state government finance commission.
4	Subsidy Amount for Ujjwala Yojana	As of now, Ujjwala scheme operates on basis of subsidies. It is estitmated as Rs.8000 crore will be needed for providing free LPG connections for 50 million families. Funds will be managed with the people who opted to omit their own LPG subsidies through PM’s “Give It Up” Initiatives.
5	Women Empowerment	As per the central government statement, implementation of Ujjwala yojana scheme on the name of women from BPL families will empower them and also it will be beneficial in terms of health aspects.
6	Employment Opportunities	Ujjwala Yojana scheme offers employment for youths from rural areas in the supply chain sections.

Agencies for verification and other related work

Government has set up various agencies that would scrutinize the applications and award or reject the same.  Respective Oil Management Company has been given the onus to verify the application and the individual’s status through their field agents. Verification process would be aided by an online data centre and digital process. So far as the cost of the stove goes, the beneficiary would be given the option of going for an EMI payment process to purchase the stove which receives positive response from the experts all across the nation.

The government also made provisions for voluntary organization or individuals to participate in the yojana if they wish to contribute towards payment of the cost of stove for the beneficiary. The government order indicates that this subsidiary scheme cannot be run under any other new name but must work under the ambit of the PMUY only. Oil Marketing Company has also been told to organize melas and events during which the distribution process of the LPG connection is to be held in public. The event must have in its audience some distinguished people of the local area. OMC themselves would have to collate their list of distributed connection and forward to the government administrative wing within 10 days of every quarter.