NEW DELHI: The ambitious Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to provide LPG connections to BPL households and supply clean energy has utterly failed in the North East, particularly in Meghalaya, Rajya Sabha member Wansuk Syiem said recently.
Syiem said many in the North East gave up their subsidised LPG connections so that the poor in the region get cheaper and cleaner gas. But till date the scheme has not covered many parts of the North East, including Meghalaya, and barring Assam, no state has got a single connection, she added.
Launched last year, the scheme is aimed at replacing the unclean cooking fuel mostly used in rural India with clean and more efficient LPG.
But the region is staring at a massive crisis in the LPG sector and will be deficit in LPG production till 2030, as per the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 North East.
The demand-supply analysis at the product level reveals that the North East will continue to be in the deficit as far as LPG is concerned. LPG shortage in the region has been growing over the last 10 years and initiatives by refineries is necessary to increase LPG production from the region and to take it to the all-India level of average production. This would require the refining companies to upgrade and change their refinery configuration so that more LPG is produced from the region, the plan said.
In fact, the crisis is not limited only to production but is also in pipeline network and bottling plants. Production of LPG in the region was 157,000 metric tonne (MT) in 2014-15 as compared to consumption of 402 TMT in the same year.
Consumption is expected to increase as LPG penetration rates increase. By 2030, LPG consumption in the NE is expected to be around 957 TMT for achieving 80 per cent penetration, as compared with production of around 806 TMT, which will result in a shortfall of around 150 TMT. Assuming 100 per cent LPG penetration, there will be a shortage of around 800 TMT.
At present, the North East does not have LPG pipeline network and the entire supply of LPG is made through road transportation using LPG bullet tankers/packed trucks. Supply by road is often subject to various interruptions, which regularly occur during the course of travel of the tanker trucks to distant destinations.
Even the storage capacity is dismal in the region is also dismal, the report said. The figure is more dismal for states such as Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram which have only 0-2 day’s coverage.
Therefore, considering the geographical locations of the region, effort should be made to increase LPG coverage to 15 days from current level of 5-6 days.
There are 12 LPG bottling plants across the northeastern region with a total bottling capacity of 426 TMTPA and existing tankage of around 15 TMTPA. Planning of additional tanks need to be put in place so that adequate storage cover is available in the North East considering the rise in demand,” the plan said.
The Centre should remember that the entire NE region comprises forest areas where most of the people depend on firewood for domestic fuel. Efforts should be made by the Centre to wean away the people from this pollution causing fuel and go for cleaner fuel like LPG, Wansuk added.
