Tag Archives: BPL Households

Kerosene Free Chandigarh from April 1, 2016

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Current Affairs, INDIA, NATIONAL NEWS

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 From 1st April, 2016, Chandigarh will be declared kerosene free, with the efforts of the city Administration and Oil Marketing Companies. Thus, no further distribution of subsidized kerosene will be done in Chandigarh from the month of April, 2016 onwards.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India with the help of Chandigarh Administration has been working for the last few months to make Chandigarh ‘a Kerosene Free City’. MoPNG decided to facilitate the households presently using Kerosene Oil by facilitating switchover to LPG. In the whole process and to facilitate the kerosene beneficiaries to have LPG connections, the following steps were taken by OMCs and Chandigarh administration:

a) Camps were organized at various localities in consultation with Chandigarh administration to provide hassle free LPG connections.

b) Deposit free LPG connections were provided to BPL households and interest free loan scheme was launched for APL households.

c) IEC campaign in the form of distribution of Pamphlets and Radio Jingles was done to create awareness among the mass.

During this campaign, a total of 15,249 LPG connections were provided in Chandigarh city, including 1574 for BPL households.

Free LPG connections to Women from BPL Households

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in Current Affairs, Economics, INDIA, NATIONAL NEWS, Women

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The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana – Scheme for Providing Free LPG connections to Women from BPL Households. Under the scheme, Rs 8000 crore has been earmarked for providing five crore LPG connections to BPL households. The Scheme provides a financial support of Rs 1600 for each LPG connection to the BPL households. The identification of eligible BPL families will be made in consultation with the State Governments and the Union Territories. This Scheme would be implemented over three years, namely, the FY 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.

This is the first time in the history of the country that the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas would implement a welfare scheme benefitting crores of women belonging to the poorest households.

In our country, the poor have limited access to cooking gas (LPG). The spread of LPG cylinders has been predominantly in the urban and semi-urban areas with the coverage mostly in middle class and affluent households. But there are serious health hazards associated with cooking based on fossil fuels. According to WHO estimates, about 5 lakh deaths in India alone due to unclean cooking fuels. Most of these premature deaths were due to non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Indoor air pollution is also responsible for a significant number of acute respiratory illnesses in young children. According to experts, having an open fire in the kitchen is like burning 400 cigarettes an hour.

Providing LPG connections to BPL households will ensure universal coverage of cooking gas in the country. This measure will empower women and protect their health. It will reduce drudgery and the time spent on cooking. It will also provide employment for rural youth in the supply chain of cooking gas.

In this direction, Finance Minister in Budget speech on 29.2.2016 had announced a budgetary provision of Rs. 2000 crore for 2016-17 to provide deposit free LPG connections to 1.5 crore women belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Further, the Budget announced that the Scheme will be continued for two more years to cover 5 crore households.