Recently I was in the Baramulla district in north Kashmir as part of the NITI Aayog’s Aspirational Districts Programme for evaluating the implementation of developmental schemes. During my interaction with the beneficiaries of the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme, I was realised the reach of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana scheme in the remote villages of Uri block of the district. During several interactions, people of the block told us about how the programme has benefitted their lives.
After hearing their views, I visited households of the Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries. I randomly chose a household, and to visit that house, we had to climb a hillock for around 15 minutes. It was a small single-bedroom house. A middle-aged woman took me to her kitchen for tea, which was made using LPG. While making tea, she told us that she doesn’t have to spend her time and energy to gather firewood to make her food. In fact, she has now started extra money from knitting during her spare time.
