Daijiworld Media Network

Udupi, Dec 29: “Hindustan Petroleum is targeting to achieve 100% LPG connections in Udupi under Ujjwala Scheme,” said Zunaid, senior sales officer of HP and nodal officer for Ujjwala scheme for Udupi.

Addressing a press conference at Udupi press club here on Friday December 28, he said in Udupi, Karnataka IOC has released 2657; BPC 5486 and HPC 7265 that is total 15,418 beneficiaries have been provided with LPG connections under the scheme till date.

“Recently, in order to give a universal reach of clean cooking fuel, LPG in the country, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister, has given a latest decision to release deposit free LPG connections to poor families, who were not being considered for the release of LPG connections under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) on account of their names not appearing either in socio-economic caste census (SECC) list or the seven identified categories that is SC/STs households, beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) (Gramin), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), forest dwellers, Most Backward Classes (MBC), tea and ex-tea garden tribes, people residing in islands / river islands,” he said.

"The scheme will cover poor households and have led to improve national LPG coverage which was less than 62% as on March 1, 2016 to 89.5% as on December 1. Today, the district has covered 2,73,177 households with LPG as cooking fuel. District LPG coverage stands at 96 % as against earlier coverage of 85 % as on March 01, 2016," he added.

"Around 97% beneficiaries under the scheme, who could not afford to make upfront payment for purchase of gas stove and first refill, were provided loan facility by the OMCs. It is significant to mention that 90% of PMUY beneficiaries in the district have come back for refill of LPG cylinder after the connection released and the average per capita consumption is 4.48 cylinders per annum," he said.

"Now, the identified poor households who were deprived to avail the scheme benefits for want of not appearing in SECC list or not able to certify their eligibility in the seven categories can avail the scheme benefits by submitting the KYC along with Aadhaar and bank account details of applicant. Aadhaar details of adult family members, ration card and 14 point exclusion criteria declaration is as per SECC," Zunaid said.

"PMUY is a revolution which has removed smoke from the kitchens of the poor households in the country by providing them accessibility to clean cooking fuel LPG. There is no deposit charge for gas connection. Once the gas cylinder gets over, the first six months refilling is free on charge. The subsidy amount will be credited to the beneficiary account," he said.

“Around 14% people are self declared BPL families. They have conducted 64 LPG panchayats in Udupi for creating awareness about fuel consumption,” he added.

Ramesh, senior regional manager, Balaji Raghavendra Acharya, HP gas distributor, Nithyananda, Karkala distributor were present.