?After catapulting LPG coverage by about 40 per cent in just 55 months, the government will soon make available clean cooking fuel to all households, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Sunday.
Speaking at the Petrotech 2019 conference here on the outskirts of Delhi, he said coverage of LPG in the country has reached close to 90 per cent, rising from about 55 per cent in 2014.
"Very soon, India will be connecting all households with clean cooking fuel. The source of fuel will be LPG as well as gas from bio-mass and alternate sources," he said.
The increase in coverage has been credited to the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), which provides free cooking gas (LPG) connection to the poor. Under PMUY, about 6.4 crore connections have been provided since the launch of the scheme on May 1, 2016, he said.
"Before March 31, 2020, we will provide LPG connections to 8 crore households under PMUY," he said.
LPG is supposed to replace traditional cooking fuels in rural kitchens such as firewood and cow dung which not only contribute to environmental degradation but also have serious health implications on users.
Pradhan said the oil and gas sector is a key contributor to India's economy and accounted for almost 55 per cent of its energy mix in 2017.
India is the third largest consumer of crude oil and petroleum products in the world, accounting for 4.5 per cent of global oil consumption, behind US and China. ?
"With the introduction of National Data Repository, India has joined the league of countries like UK and Norway which have a national data repository for the upstream sector," he said. ?