Union Petroleum and Naural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today launched the "extended Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana" in Bihar under which 8 crore LPG connections would be given to beneficiaries across the country.
Earlier, the target under the Centre's flagship scheme was to give 5 crore LPG connections across the country which was raised to 8 crore with additional allocation of fund in the current fiscal 2018-19.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who launched the scheme on May 1, 2016, from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, has made the provision in this financial year's budget to increase the target from 5 crore to 8 crore under Ujjwala yojana, Pradhan told reporters here.
Buoyed by the success of the scheme in past two years, Pradhan said that 3.60 crore out of 5 crore LPG connections have been given in past two years in the country under the scheme.
Of 3.60 crore connections, 50 lakh connections have been given under Ujjwala scheme in Bihar alone, he said.
He said, "When we (NDA) took over the reins at the Centre, only 23 out of 100 households had LPG connections in Bihar. The total number of LPG connections in Bihar was 48 lakh four years ago which has increased to 1.23 crore connections now."
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