Over one crore free cooking gas (LPG) connections have been given to poor rural women in six months since the launch of Pradhan Mantri Ujwala Yojana.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the ambitious scheme to give 5 crore women free LPG in next three years was launched in May this year. The total outlay for the scheme is Rs 8,000 crore.
"As of date, 1.01 crore LPG connections have been given under the scheme," he said.
As many as 20,000-25,000 connections are being given every month and at this pace, the target of 1.5 crore connections for the year would be surpassed by a big margin, he said.
Pradhan said Uttar Pradesh has got the biggest chunk of the free connections at 34.59 lakh, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 13.32 lakh. As many as 12.94 lakh connections were given in Rajasthan, 10.34 lakh in Bihar and 7.66 lakh in West Bengal.
Of the 638 districts in the country, those getting the most number of free connections are in Uttar Pradesh - Sitapur (1.29 lakh), Allahabad (1.26 lakh), Khusinagar (1.16 lakh), Unnao (87,752) and Gonda (84,173).
"More than 1.81 crore application for availing of LPG connections were received. Out of these, 1.5 crore applications were cleared and 1.01 crore connections released so far," he said.
Further analysis of the refill purchase status of the beneficiaries revealed that more than 80 per cent have purchased their refills.
The major beneficiaries of this scheme are from weaker sections of the society, that is SC/ST who accounted for 44 per cent of the connections released.
The minister also said that a massive safety awareness campaign will be carried out over a period of four months starting from November to educate all LPG consumers on importance of safety following norms.
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