LPG cylinder refills by PMUY beneficiaries woefully inadequate, shows data

More than 95.8 million gas connections have been released under PMUY as of February 2, 2023, reveals data available on the official PMUY website

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting Union Budget 2023-24 said 96 million liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or cooking gas connections were provided under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).

More than 95.8 million connections have been released under PMUY as of February 2, 2023, reveals data available on the official website. However, 9.6 per cent of beneficiaries took no refills, 11.3 per cent took only one refill, and 56.5 per cent took four or fewer refills in 2021-22.

A typical household using only LPG for cooking, whether in urban or rural India, will need at least seven cylinders per year to meet all its cooking energy needs, a 2020 study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi-based think tank, had found.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, in May 2016, launched PMUY as a “flagship scheme to make clean cooking fuel, such as LPG, accessible to rural households, which were otherwise using traditional cooking fuels such as firewood, coal, cow-dung cakes, etc”.

From May 21, 2022, the government announced a Rs 200 subsidy per 14.2 kilogram (kg) cylinder for PMUY beneficiaries, for up to 12 refills a year during 2022-23, according to the December 2022 Rajya Sabha response.

The main reason for fewer cylinder refills is the high cost of refilling them. When PMUY was launched in May 2016, the price of a standard non-subsidised 14.2 kg LPG cylinder in Delhi was Rs 527.5. This had doubled to Rs 1,053 by July 2022.