A country can make progress only if the women of the country that are nari shakti are empowered. As Swami Vivekananda rightly said, “There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. A bird can’t fly on only one wing.” But, even after 75 years of independence of India, measures taken to protect women’s health have been negligible, especially for women who are living below the poverty line.
The health of women and children especially in rural areas was getting heavily compromised as they were working in smoky kitchens due to cooking based on traditional cooking fuels such as firewood, and coal and were wandering in unsafe areas to collect firewood to cook meals for their family. The soot and smoke from churches where the traditional cooking fuel was used for cooking meals were toxic and very harmful. In fact, due to the air pollution caused by this continuous usage of unclean cooking fuel, many of these women and their kids were suffering from acute respiratory illnesses leading to death in most cases.
To safeguard the health of women and children, the government of India launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in May 2016 to provide deposit free LPG connections to adult women of poor households. The aim was to encourage the poor women in the country to switch to clean cooking fuel LPG so that they can work in smoke & pollution free kitchens.
Under this scheme, 5 crore LPG connections were provided to BPL families with a support of Rs.1600 per connection in the next 3 years. In order to ensure women’s empowerment, especially in rural India, the connections were issued in the name of women of the households. In 2018, the scheme was expanded to include women beneficiaries from seven more categories (SC/ST, PMAY, AAY, most backward classes, tea garden, forest dwellers, Islands) and the target was revised to 8 crore LPG connections.
The scheme was implemented successfully within the country and the target of 8 crore was achieved seven months ahead of the target date. In 2021, this scheme was further enhanced with launch of Ujjwala Yojana 2.0 that provided additional allocation of 1.6 crore deposit-free LPG connections with special emphasis to cover the migrant households with minimal paperwork.
The flagship mission launched by the government has been a roaring success and was successful in preventing at least 1.5 lakh pollution related premature deaths and helped in avoiding at least 1.8MT pf PM2.5 emissions in 2019 alone. Along with this, total LPG sales saw a 62% growth rate and was increased from 17639 TMT in FY 2014-2015 to 28577 TMT in FY 2021-22.
Another point to highlight is that Average LPG consumption under Ujjwala is up 20% from 3.01 refills in 2019-20 to 3.68 in 2021-22 which is a clear indicator of how well the lives of millions of people have been changed by giving them access to clean cooking. Ujjwala Divas was celebrated with much fanfare in 2022 with a pledge to empower women and keep our future pollution-free.
As on 30 Jan 2023, 9.59 crore connections have been released under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana which has created happy, healthy and smokeless kitchens for the women. The free delivery of LPG cylinders to beneficiaries helped to mitigate the economic hardships among the vulnerable due to Covid-19. The scheme became a success story and has got global recognition by International Energy Agency (IEA) that applauded it as a major achievement in improving the environment and health of women.
Not just this, the scheme also garnered praise by WHO for providing 37 million women living below the poverty line with Free LPG connections in just 2 years to support them to switch to clean household energy use. This flagship scheme has been further enhanced by government of India in March 2023 as it has been decided to provide the subsidy of Rs 200 per 14.2 kg cylinder for up to 12 refills per year to around 9.59 crore Ujjwala beneficiaries.
This subsidy amount is directly credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries. This has been a remarkable decision to encourage the continuous usage of LPG and get families to switch to LPG for a better tomorrow.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the benchmark scheme has been empowering every household. It is not only saving women and households in India from alarming pollution and the other hassles of collecting fuel but has also generated 1 lakh employment through the LPG distribution system. The government has been successful in lighting up the happiness of more than 9 crore families and is progressing on the right path to empower women to lead smoke-free lives.
References
https://www.pmuy.gov.in/index.aspx
https://web.umang.gov.in/landing/department/pradhan-mantri-ujjwala-yojna-pmuy.html
