Challenges Before the Scheme
- As per the CEEW study done across Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand, it is found that people prefer paying Rs 300 for a 5 kg cylinder rather than paying an upfront amount of Rs 900-1000 for a 14 kg cylinder.
- The main obstacle to providing free LPG connections was the absence of accurate data that could identify disadvantaged families.
- Very few people use LPG for cooking.
- Stacking of LPG and biomass is prevalent in a large number of households.
- Due to their easy affordability, Biomass fuels such as firewood, crop residue, and dung cakes are being preferred over CNG in rural areas.
- Several households lacked essential papers like ration cards and Aadhaar cards.
- Beneficiaries’ knowledge of safety criteria for using an LPG burner is restricted because the majority of them came from low-income, illiterate backgrounds.
Objective, Feature and Challenges of PMUY Plan
Prime Minister Ujjwala Plan is a plan of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to distribute LPG cylinders for the empowerment of women. Prior to discussing this issue, we must first examine the need of implementing this plan. The rural areas in India have little access to cooking gas (LPG) as they don’t have much economic support. The majority of middle-class and wealthy homes have LPG cylinder coverage, which has been concentrated in metropolitan and semi-urban regions. However, using fossil fuels in the villages for cooking has major health risks. Providing LPG connections to BPL families through PMUP guaranteed that cooking gas is available to everyone in the nation and it played a huge role in strengthening women and safeguarding their health.
Important Term:
- LPG Cylinders: Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder is the finest way to cook food without any hassle. A cylinder filled with LPG gas has to connect with a burner for cooking purposes.