{"id":17124,"date":"2023-09-14T17:03:07","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T11:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/?p=17124"},"modified":"2023-09-14T17:03:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T11:33:25","slug":"expansion-of-pm-ujjwala-yojana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/14-09-2023\/expansion-of-pm-ujjwala-yojana","title":{"rendered":"Expansion of PM Ujjwala Yojana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/Government Policies and Interventions, Welfare Scheme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">News<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Union Cabinet has recently approved <strong>the extension of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)<\/strong> for release of 75 lakh LPG connections over three years from Financial Year 2023-24 to 2025-26.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">About<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Provisioning of 75 lakh additional Ujjwala connections will take the <strong>total number of PMUY beneficiaries to 10.35 crore.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As per the existing modalities of Ujjawala 2.0, <strong>the first refill and stove will also be provided free of cost to Ujjwala beneficiaries.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A targeted<strong> subsidy of Rs.200 per 14.2 kg LPG cylinder for upto 12 refills per year is being provided to PMUY consumers.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Without continuation of PMUY, eligible poor households may not be able to get their due benefit under the scheme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Need of clean cooking fuel<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Women\u2019s ease of living through clean cooking:<\/strong> According to the WHO, approximately<strong> 2.4 billion people worldwide <\/strong>(one-third of the global population),<strong> rely on open fires or inefficient stoves<\/strong> fuelled by kerosene, biomass (such as wood, animal dung, and crop waste), and coal for cooking.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This leads to <strong>harmful household air pollution<\/strong>, contributing to an estimated<strong> 3.2 million deaths annually in 2020,<\/strong> with over 237,000 deaths being <strong>children <\/strong>under the age of 5.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Achieving a <strong>sustainable and pollution-free future<\/strong> requires addressing the issue of household air pollution, especially to prevent suffering among women and children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>A heightened mortality risk<\/strong> due to illnesses such as pneumonia, lung cancer, ischaemic heart, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases is extensively reported due to <strong>use of traditional fuels<\/strong> like firewood, coal and dung cakes in <strong>rural India<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Non-renewable wood fuels for cooking cause a gigaton of CO2 emissions<\/strong>, and burning residential solid fuels comprise 58 percent of black carbon emissions. They are also a significant contributor to <strong>household air pollution (HAP<\/strong>) due to incomplete combustion of solid biomass.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Research also indicates that this is a<strong> gender problem: girls and women face increased exposure to solid fuels.<\/strong> Cooking with solid fuels <strong>delays progress towards five of the UN SDGs.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PMUY scheme- Achievements<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The PMUY scheme has <strong>empowered women economically and socially<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>With easier access to LPG, women are <strong>no longer burdened with the task of collecting firewood or other traditional fuels,<\/strong> which often required long and laborious journeys.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This newfound convenience <strong>allows them to participate more actively in community life and take up other income-generating opportunities.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Furthermore, the Ujjwala scheme has <strong>contributed to enhancing <\/strong>the<strong> safety and security of women<\/strong>, as they no longer need to venture into isolated and potentially unsafe areas to collect firewood or fuel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Per capita consumption of PMUY beneficiaries<\/strong> which was 3.01 in 2018-19 has increased to 3.71 in 2022-23. PMUY beneficiaries took more than 35 Cr LPG refills a year now (2022-23).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Initiatives to expand LPG coverage<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>PAHAL (Pratyaksh Hastantarit Labh):<\/strong> Instead of providing LPG cylinders at subsidized price, those were sold at market price, and applicable<strong> subsidy was directly transferred to an individual&#8217;s bank account electronically<\/strong>.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This<strong> reduced &#8220;ghost&#8221; accounts and illegal use of household cylinders for commercial purposes,<\/strong> ensuring that only the intended beneficiaries receive the benefits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>GIVE IT UP: <\/strong>Instead of removing subsidies forcefully, <strong>people were encouraged to voluntarily surrender their subsidies.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Through extensive promotion, millions of people willingly gave up the subsidies, which helped redirect the funds to those who genuinely needed assistance in acquiring LPG cylinders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>During Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, <strong>free refill scheme under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana <\/strong>was implemented. Under this scheme, assistance of Rs. 9670.41 Crore was given to PMUY beneficiaries in support of 14.17 Crore LPG refills.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1957097\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syllabus: GS2\/Government Policies and Interventions, Welfare Scheme News About Need of clean cooking fuel PMUY scheme- Achievements Initiatives to expand LPG coverage Source: PIB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17125,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions\/17125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}