The Centre has a target to connect 5 crore new LPG connections in the name of poor (BPL) category women in three financial years, Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Petroleum and Natrual Gas, has said.

Elaborating on the plan, he said: “We started the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in May 2016. Under this programme, the government handholds consumers by providing upfront cost of LPG connection from the Union government’s budget.

“Our target for 2016-17 was 1.5 crore. We achieved this in 8 months. The target for 2017-18 is 1.5 crore new LPG connection and the following fiscal is 2 crore, taking the total to 5 crore new connection in 3 years,” he said.

The minister was in the city at the Pearl Jubilee National Convention and Exhibition of All India LPG Distributors Federation.

Stressing that the Centre is giving priority to LPG and that “LPG is not just a commodity but a catalyst of socio-economic change of society”, the minister added: “Statistics show that close to 5 lakh women die due to domestic pollution every year. We therefore decided to usher in a change.”

He further pointed out that the LPG connection, which stood at 13 crore in 2014 (when the BJP came to power) had risen to over 19 crore at present.

The minister, while stating that the penetration of LPG is high in Southern States, did not fail to point out that the PMUY is yet to be rolled out in TN.

“Though the average penetration is as high as 85 per cent, it is still low in some districts such as Pudukottai (less than 50 per cent), Ariyalur, Thiruvarur, Villupuram, Perambalur, Nagapattinam, Dharmapuri, Tanjore and Ramanathapuram, well below the national average of 71 per cent. We have now decided to move in for 100 per cent penetration in TN,” he added.

In line with giving a big push to LPG penetration, the minister said that the Centre also plans to add 10,000 new distributors by end of this year. “We have already notified 1,500 in four States – primarily in the eastern and central part of the country. The rest will follow soon.”

Earlier, he called upon the dealers and oil marketing companies to comply with safety norms, by organising safety clinic to sensitise users at least once every quarter.

The minister said that insurance would be made mandatory, but did not have the number of consumers that had opted for insurance protection. “But insurance will be made mandatory for old and new consumers,” he said in reply to a question.

Reverting to multi-dimensional benefits of “going less on cash transactions”, he said: “The daily transaction volume of petroleum products is around ₹2,000 crore. These take place across the 53,000 fuel stations and the 18,000 distributors of LPG.

“In TN, there are 4,554 retail outlets. Of these 4,077 outlets are either using POS or e-wallets, or both. This is 90 per cent of the total outlets. TN is among the highest digital-enabled States as far as petrol pumps are concerned.

Post December 8, the number of digital transactions in petrol pumps was 5 per cent in TN. This has risen to 28 per cent at present.

The Centre is focussing on 50 cities across the country for going cashless. Four of these are in TN including Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Madurai. In all these cities, 100 per cent digital transaction is available at petrol pumps,” he added.

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