With Ujjwala, more LPG access but limited usage
MUMBAI: In India, cooking, a very basic activity for human sustenance, can be fraught with danger. In 2016, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that nearly 800,000 Indians lost their lives prematurely because of hazardous fuels such as wood and coal used in cooking. For more than 40 years, the Indian government’s main response has been to encourage the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a healthier but more expensive fuel, through a significant subsidy. To this subsidy, in 2016, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA added a new initiative—the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), which provides a free LPG connection to poor households.
In terms of scale, PMUY is only a small proportion of the overall LPG subsidy. Last year’s budget (2017-18) set aside ₹2,252 crore for PMUY—around 14% of the overall LPG subsidy.
