After giving a subsidy of Rs 200 on the price of domestic cooking gas cylinders, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections in several states, the Modi government has made another big announcement on cooking gas. On Wednesday, it was announced that 75 lakh more LPG connections will be provided under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala 2.0 Yojana. A cabinet meeting today approved a total budgetary allocation of Rs 1,650 crore for the purpose. These 75 lakh LPG connections will be provided in the next three years. This means that in the next three years, another 75 lakh poor women will get LPG connections at free of cost. Addressing a press conference here, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said, "So far, 9.60 crore LPG cylinders have been distributed under the Ujjwala 2.0 scheme. I am happy to announce that another 75 lakh LPG connections will be provided free of charge so that more poor and needy women get the benefit of this scheme."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in May 2016 to provide free LPG connections to women from families below the poverty line. The scheme was started so that poor families could use LPG cylinders to deal with the health problems caused by the use of wood, coal, etc. for cooking. In addition to free LPG connections, Ujjwala Yojana customers are given a subsidy of Rs 200 on 12 LPG cylinders weighing 14.2 kg every year. After the government announced a subsidy of Rs 200 per cylinder on domestic LPG cylinders for all, the subsidy for the beneficiaries of the Ujjwala Yojana has come down to Rs 400 per cylinder. With these additional 75 lakh LPG connections under the Ujjwala 2.0 scheme, the total number of beneficiaries under the scheme will go up to 10.35 crore.
Apart from this important announcement on the Ujjwala 2.0 Yojana, the Union Cabinet has taken several other important decisions today. As part of the National e-Governance Plan, the e-Courts project was launched in 2007. The second phase of the project was completed this year. The Cabinet has allocated Rs 7,210 crore for the next four years for the third phase of work. Foreign investment up to Rs 9,589 crore has also been approved at Sven Pharmaceuticals, owned by Cyprus-based Berhianda Limited Company. The Union Cabinet also passed a resolution to congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the success of the G20 Summit.
