Bhubaneswar: Clearing the ambiguity over the beneficiary list for implementation of Centre’s Ujjwala Scheme, Union Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said the list prepared by concerned State will be given utmost priority.
“Though the Centre has lists of BPL families in all States, we will ask each and every State for an updated BPL list before implementing the Ujjwala Scheme. Based on it, we will roll out the project,” Pradhan stated.
The minister’s statement came in the wake of media reports that the Odisha government is undecided about the list for implementation of the scheme as it has two such lists. As per a survey done in 1997, the State has around 45 lakh BPL families, whereas 58 lakh families in the State have been categorized under the ‘Deprived’ section in the Socio Economic and Caste Census conducted in 2011.
However Odisha Panchayati Raj minister Arun Sahu had said yesterday that it would wait for the Centre’s guidelines on this.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has recently approved the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana - a scheme for providing free LPG connections to women in BPL families. Five crore LPG connections will be given to BPL households under the Scheme across the country in the next three years.
The Centre has earmarked Rs 8000 crore for LPG connections to BPL households. The Scheme provides a financial support of Rs 1600 for LPG connection to each BPL household.
According to reports, eligible BPL families will be identified in consultation with the State Governments and the Union Territories. This Scheme would be implemented over three years, namely, the FY 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.