LPG coverage in state up at 44 pc in 2 years: IOC

SHILLONG: Manish Sah, the Assistant Manager (LPG – Sales) of Indian Oil Corporation Limited, said Meghalaya has covered 2.87 lakh households with LPG as cooking fuel and state LPG coverage stands at 44 per cent as against the earlier coverage of 24 per cent till April 1, 2016.
Sah told reporters that poor households who could not avail the benefit as their names did not appear on the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) list or could not certify their eligibility in the seven categories, can avail the scheme by submitting the KYC along with ration card and bank account details of applicant, ration card details of adult family members and 14 point exclusion criteria declaration as per SECC.
The Centre had introduced the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) for which budgetary provision of Rs 12,800 crore has been provided for releasing 5 crore LPG connections to women member of BPL households by March 2019 and additional 3 crore LPG connections by March 2020.
The scheme was formally launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Balia, Uttar Pradesh, on May 5, 2016.
Last year, the PMUY coverage was enhanced and new seven categories SC/STs households, beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri AwasYojana (Gramin), Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), forest dwellers, most backward classes, tea and ex-tea garden tribes, people residing in islands/river islands.
Recently, in order to give a universal reach of clean cooking fuel LPG in the country the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the prime minister, has given a latest directive to release deposit-free LPG connections to poor families, who were not getting considered earlier for release of LPG connections under PMUY on account of their names not appearing either in SECC list or the seven identified categories i.e. SC/STs households, beneficiaries of PMAY (Gramin), AAY and others.