Ujjwala Yojna has poor intake in state

Ahna Prakash | NT
Bengaluru

The BJP government launched ‘Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana’ (PMUY)’ in 2016, to provide free gas connections to low-income families. However, the scheme’s reach at the grass-root level in Karnataka is poor and the state currently ranks 14th among 29 states across the country.

Karnataka recorded 36,21,796 total connections released under PMUY, far less than states like West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which registered 1,19,51,110, 1,04,41,988, 1,71,80,337 total connections released under PMUY, respectively.

According to the latest data (July 4, 2022), Bengaluru recorded 26,000 connections. However, the state government claims that the Ujjwala yojana is a huge success and reached every household. However, some families cannot use an LPG cylinder even after being eligible to avail the benefits of the scheme.

In the wake of the price hike of LPG over the past few months, NewsTrail visited slums in the city to find out how the economically vulnerable section of our society are dealing with the steep increases.

In a slum near J.J. Church, 30-year-old Ranjita doesn’t have an LPG connection.She claims that she applied for the PMUY scheme, but never got her connection. “I have my BPL card; I registered for the scheme but never got the connection. So, I bought a small cylinder for Rs 300 from a person,” she said. Ranjita refused to divulge the name of the person who sold her the cylinder.

Many households resort to using illegal means to buy a cylinder. Another woman in a slum in Halasuru, Meena, who works at construction sites, used firewood to cook food in her native place at Belgavi. After she shifted to Bengaluru, she used a small 5kg cylinder to cook food.She says that people in her area are unaware of the Ujjwala scheme. “I make Rs 300 a day, and in that money, I have to pay for hundreds of other things like my house and food. I can’t afford a cylinder for Rs 1,500, and I am unaware of any government scheme to buy cylinders at a lower price. I would rather use cheaper options like firewood,” said Meena.

BPL card holders in the slum say it will be challenging to afford cooking gas as the LPG saw a sharp hike over the past few months.

A Right to Information (RTI) application filed by activist Chandrashekhar Gaur to the three oil marketing firms showed that 90 lakh beneficiaries of the scheme did not refill their cylinders. And over one crore beneficiaries refilled their cylinders only once.

Rajesh, one of the scheme’s beneficiaries, says that he couldn’t afford to pay for the cylinder refilling. “We took cylinders under the scheme, but later, we had to pay the full price for the refill. So, we couldn’t afford to do it,” he said.

The same is the case with many beneficiaries who have resorted to cooking by firewood or coal because they can’t afford LPG cylinders. As per the 2011 Census nearly 121 million households use traditional cooking methods requiring firewood and kerosene as cooking fuels, resulting in pollution and health problems.