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The Union government has extended the cooking gas subsidy for households under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to the end of 2023-24 to “shield” beneficiaries from high LPG prices.
As on March 1, there were 9.59 crore Ujjwala beneficiaries in the country.
The Rs 200 subsidy will be provided on a maximum of 12 refills and the total estimated expenditure on this count will be Rs 7,680 crore for 2023-24, the government said in a release after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, which approved the proposal.
The government had stopped providing cooking gas subsidy since the crash in oil and fuel prices in the initial weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
However, in May last year, the government announced a subsidy of Rs 200 per cylinder for Ujjwala beneficiaries as part of its efforts to cushion the impact of high energy prices in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For 2022-23, government’s outgo for this subsidy is pegged at Rs 6,100 crore.
Under the Ujjwala scheme, beneficiaries pay market price for LPG refills and receive cash subsidy in their bank accounts.
“Targeted support to PMUY consumers encourages them for continuous usage of LPG. It is important to ensure sustained LPG adoption and usage among PMUY consumers so that they can completely switch to cleaner cooking fuel,” the government said.
The Ujjwala scheme was launched in 2016 to encourage poor households, particularly those in rural areas, to shift to LPG from conventional fuels like firewood and cow dung cakes, which are considered hazardous.
