Itanagar: The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a central scheme under which women belonging to BPL families will be provided with clean cooking fuel, was launched on Sunday in Arunachal Pradesh.
The scheme aims at providing LPG connections to five crore BPL households by 2019 across the country and offers assistance of Rs 1,600 for one connection.
Khandu hailed the scheme and announced that his government will dovetail it with a subsidy of Rs 1,000 for each beneficiary, taking the total subsidy amount to Rs 2,600 against total requirement of Rs 3,500 under the PMUY.
Expressing gratitude to the Prime Minister, Khandu said the scheme will benefit Arunachal as more than half of the state’s population, specially in rural areas, still use firewood for cooking.
Informing that highest lung cancer cases are reported from the North East, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who was also present at the occasion, blamed it on use of firewood for cooking in almost all households and said PMUY will now change this scenario, providing a clean environment and preserving forests. As a symbolic launch of PMUY in the state, 24 beneficiaries were handed over LPG connections. Arunachal Pradesh has around 3.04 lakh households with LPG coverage of 65 per cent as on May this year. (PTI)
