Marking a significant moment in history, the first woman member from Nagaland in the Rajya Sabha, Smt. Phangnon Konyak presided over the House today. Earlier she had created history by becoming the first ever women member to be appointed to the panel of Vice- Chairpersons on July 17, 2023.
In a remarkable move to bring about gender equality, the Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar last week had nominated four women members (50% of the total number) to the panel of Vice-Chairpersons.
In order to provide environment friendly clean cooking fuel to women especially in rural areas to get rid of health hazards faced by them due to use of traditional fuel, Pradhan MantriUjjwalaYojana was launched on 1st May, 2016 by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi from Balia in Uttar Pradesh.
During FY 2020-21 whole world was hit by Covid and for supporting the PMUY households which are poorest of the poor people Government announced to provide 3 free refills to each PMUY households under PMGKP. During the running of the scheme, a total of 14.17 Cr refills were given free of cost to the PMUY beneficiaries.
Based on the data from pre-covid year that is FY 2019-20, there is growth in the per capita consumption which has increased from 3.01 to 3.71 in FY 2022-23.
PMUY households are poorest of the poor households. UjjwalaYojna (PMUY) was launched in May 2016 to improve access to LPG, a predominant clean cooking fuel for poor households. Aim of the scheme is to provide a helping hand to poor families in taking their first move and creating a behavioral change towards clean cooking.
Creating a behavioral change in a democratic society like India takes a lot of time and continuous efforts. While PMUY has successfully helped millions of poor households in their first step towards a healthy pollution free life by providing them a free LPG connection, Oil Marketing Companies under MoP&NG are continuing their efforts towards behavioral change through initiatives like LPG Panchayat and public outreach.