PMUY 2.0 nears 10 mn LPG connections target, 9.5 mn KYCs already in place

2.3 million connections disbursed between August 10 and September 15

The second leg of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme has picked up pace and is already close to its target of disbursing 10 million new Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG or cooking gas) connections.

According to oil ministry officials, know-your-customer (KYC) approvals for 9.5 million new applications have already been received by the public sector oil marketing companies, which are implementing the scheme. KYC is a processinstitutions undertake to verify the details of an intended beneficiary before beginning services. A KYC approval brings a recipient one step closer to the sought benefit.

“Of these, 2.3 million new deposit free LPG connections have already been disbursed from August 10 to September 15,” an official told Business Standard.

“The highest number of connections have been disbursed in Bihar (605,000) till now. West Bengal (334,000) comes second while Gujarat (281,000) comes third,” he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched PMUY 2.0 on August 10 by handing over LPG connections at Mahoba Uttar Pradesh through video conferencing. “The second leg of the Ujjwala programme will give greater prominence to self-certifications. This will help those who move out of their native places, in search for jobs, to get these deposit free LPG connections,” Modi had said.

According to the oil ministry official, PMUY beneficiaries are getting connections under easier KYC guidelines. Since the focus is on covering migrants, the KYC approvals are happening regardless of the address on the Aadhar card of beneficiaries.

Focusing his speech on poll bound Uttar Pradesh (UP), Modi had said, “People from all over UP and other states including Bundelkhand, migrated from village to city or to other states for work. There they face the problem of address proof. Now these workers from other places need not run from pillar to post for address proof. The government has full faith in the honesty of the migrant workers. All one has to do is give a self-declaration of the address for getting a gas connection.”

Under the PMUY scheme, cash assistance of up to Rs 1,600 per beneficiary for providing a new LPG connection is footed by the Centre. The beneficiary bears the cost of Hot Plate (LPG stove) and purchase of first refill. To make this affordable, the beneficiary is offered a loan from Oil Marketing Companies at zero interest. The loaned amount is recovered by the oil companies through the subsidy accrued on purchase of subsequent cylinder refills by the beneficiaries. In her February 2021 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a fresh target to add 10 million more PMUY beneficiaries to the existing 80 million.

This will take the total number of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG, or cooking gas) consumers in the country close to 300 million by March 2022. There are around 207.2 million non-PMUY LPG consumers in the country.

The implementation of the populist PMUY scheme this year also gains relevance ahead of the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections due in early 2022. Uttar Pradesh already has the largest number of PMUY beneficiaries from amongst all states of the country with around 15 million existing recipients. West Bengal and Bihar come second and third at around 9 million each. Besides Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttarakhand are also poll bound in February/March 2022.

To aid lower income households during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the centre offered three free cylinder refills to PMUY recipients under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Package. This cost the exchequer Rs 9,670.41 crore and was transferred to PMUY beneficiaries during April to August 2020 under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana for buying the LPG refills. This pushed up the overall LPG consumption of the country while most other fuels reported a decline during 2020-2021.