Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) is a government scheme launched in 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The scheme envisages the distribution of 50 million LPG connections to women below the poverty line. It was launched with a budget allocation of Rs. 80 billion. A total of 22 million LPG connections were distributed during the first year of its launch.

One can know the detailed information about the Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana on the Official Website (https://pmuy.gov.in/).

Some of the major benefits provided by Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana are:

• It provides five crore LPG connections to families below the poverty line.
• Financial support of Rs 1600 is provided by the scheme for each LPG connection for BPL households. The administrative cost of this support will be borne by the Government. This subsidy is meant for the security fee for the cylinder, pressure regulator, booklet, safety hose, and other fitting charges.
• Under the scheme, oil marketing companies also provide interest-free loans for refilling and purchasing stoves.
• The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana covers all the BPL families that come under all forms of distributorship, and distributes various sizes of cylinders (14.2 kg, 5 kg, etc.) as per the field situation.
• The benefits of this scheme are also available for the people of all Hilly States including the NE States (who are treated as ‘Priority States’).
• The scheme will effectively address several difficulties faced by the people in the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Tripura in accessing LPG for cooking purposes.

Objectives of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched for providing clean fuel to women below the poverty line. The use of unclean cooking fuel is harmful to human health. The aims of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana are given below:

• To empower women and protect their health.
• To minimize health issues arising from the use of unclean fossil fuel and other fuel while cooking.
• To control indoor pollution from the use of fossil fuel which causes respiratory issues.
• To prevent degradation of the purity of the environment that is compromised by widespread usage of unclean cooking fuel.