NAGERCOIL
Minister of State for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways Pon. Radhakrishnan launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) here on Monday by handing over 1,000 security-free LPG connections to beneficiaries.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Radhakrishnan said more than 10 crore households in the country were still deprived of LPG as cooking fuel and had to rely on firewood, coal, dung cakes, etc., as primary source of cooking. The smoke from burning such fuels was causing alarming household pollution and adversely affecting the health of women and children.
As per a WHO report, smoke inhaled by women from unclean fuel was equivalent to burning 400 cigarettes in an hour. In addition, women and children had to go through the drudgery of collecting firewood, he said.
“The PMUY aims at safeguarding the health of women and children by providing them with a clean cooking fuel, LPG, so that they don’t have to compromise their health in smoky kitchens or wander in unsafe areas collecting firewood,” Mr. Radhakrishnan said.
Under this scheme, five crore LPG connections would be provided to socially and economically backward households with a support of ₹1,600 per connection in the next three years.
Ensuring women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections would be issued in the name of women of the households and ₹ 8,000 crore had been allocated for implementing the scheme.
Socially and economically backward households would be identified through Socio Economic Caste Census Data, he said.
Executive Director (Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), Indian Oil and State-level Coordinator, Oil Industry, Tamil Nadu, R. Sitharthan, Chief General Manager (LPG), Indian Oil, Tamil Nadu, L.K.S. Chauhan, Deputy General Manager, BPCL, Shrikant Yadwadkar, Deputy General Manager, South Zone, HPCL, S.R. Anbabhavani Kumar and others were present.
