“Do we refill the cylinders or feed ourselves?”

While announcing the Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated Rs 1,118 crore to the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana -- a hugely popular scheme to provide LPG connections to the poor. However, the beneficiaries are not regularly refilling their cylinders, as “they are too costly”

Ranvijay Singh
| Updated: February 5th, 2020

“Cylinder is very expensive. How will poor people like us be able to refill it?” asked Sushila and resumed lopping more firewood for firing up her home stove the next day. She had been provided with a gas cylinder four months ago under the Ujjwala Yojana, which is lying vacant in one corner of her house. 

Sushila, who is a resident of Cheda village in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, is a housewife and her husband is a labourer, who earns Rs 200 to 250 a day on days when he manages to find some work. “There is a family of six people feeding on one man’s earnings. Now, either we fill our bellies or the gas cylinder in this earning,” said Sushila.

This story is not only of Sushila. Many families like that of Sushila, who have got cylinders under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), have gone back to cooking over woodfire. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report, those who have received LPG gas connections under the PMUY, are not regularly filling up their cylinders. 

The report says that there are about 56 lakh (17.61 per cent) beneficiaries who did not fill the cylinder for the second time despite completing one year or more by December 31, 2018. In simple terms, 56 lakh women like Sushila are yet again cooking over wood.

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 1, 2016, and the aim was to distribute 50 million LPG connections to women of below poverty line (BPL) families to ensure universal coverage of cooking gas in the country.

According to the World Health Organization estimates, about five lakh deaths in India occur due to unclean cooking fuels. Most of these premature deaths are due to non-communicable diseases like heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Indoor air pollution is also responsible for a significant number of acute respiratory illnesses in young children.

According to the government, 80.3 million LPG connections have been released under the PMUY since 2016. Estimates from the Petroleum Analysis and Planning Cell (PPAC) suggest that 94% of all households had an LPG connection as of September 2019 — an increase from 56% in 2014-15. But this expansion has yet to fully translate into regular LPG usage. More than half of all rural households still do not use LPG as cooking fuel, according to the recently released 76th National Sample Survey round conducted by the National Statistical Organization.

Sushila while arranging firewood. Many like her have gone back to cooking over woodfire

Why are they still using firewood?

“We have a family of 20 people,” said Pramila, who lives in a village in Barabanki. “The cylinder does not even last for 15 days. If Rs 700-800 are to be spent every month for refilling, what will you eat? When the wood is easily found, we use it for cooking,” she added. Pointing to the empty cylinder, she said: “If only I had money, I would have surely refilled it. The fire smoke burns my eyes.”

In order to get rid of the same smoke that Pramila is referring to, Prime Minister Modi had launched the scheme. The Prime Minister, while talking about the Ujjwala Yojana, has often referred to the smoke-related problems. At an election rally, he had said: “When my mother cooked with firewood, the whole house would get filled with smoke. While cooking, smoke as much as from 400 cigarettes is inhaled by these mothers and sisters.”

On May 28, 2018, talking to the beneficiaries of the Ujjwala Yojana, the prime minister had said: “Under the Ujjwala Yojana, we observed that those who burn a wooden stove spend life in smoke. These mothers and sisters also work, they help to earn bread and then going out again to gather firewood and cooking food over fire caused much distress to them. So, we will give them gas cylinders. Through this scheme, we wish to liberate them.”

The government did provide the connections, but now not many poor families are filling the cylinder regularly. The data published on the government website proves this.

Under Ujjwala scheme, 50 million LPG connections were to be dictriuted to women of below poverty line families

Not many are re-filling

According to the data published on the PMUY website, about 5.92 crore connections have been provided across the country since the launch of Ujjwala Yojana until December 31, 2018. Looking at the data on refilling the cylinder provided under the scheme, about 4.46 crore beneficiaries have refilled the cylinders as on June 3, 2019. About 1.45 crore consumers did not come back to refill the cylinder during this period. 

The impact of the data is also evident on the ground. Ishan Agnihotri, the field officer of Indane Gas in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh admitted this when he said: “There are about 2.55 lakh beneficiaries of the Ujjwala Yojana in Barabanki. Out of this, about 40% of the beneficiaries have not come back to refill the cylinder. When we spoke to them, the first problem that came up was of money. The price of the cylinder, which is now Rs 765, is considered to be high. Secondly, out of the poor families, the families that are not re-filling the cylinders are those to whom wood is readily available. So, they do not have to spend money for wood.”

Talking about the price of gas cylinders, the price of domestic cylinders has increased by more than 30% since the inception of the Ujjwala Yojana. In May 2016, the price of non-subsidized domestic cylinder (14.2 kg) was close to Rs 550. In December 2019, the price of the domestic cylinder was close to Rs 750. So, from May 2016 to December 2019, non-subsidized domestic cylinder prices have gone up by 30.76%.

“It is a major challenge to encourage continued use of LPG gas”

The subsidy is given by the government on domestic gas cylinders. An additional subsidy of Rs 20 is provided to the consumers of Ujjwala Yojana as compared to other consumers. The price of non-subsidised domestic cylinder in Delhi is Rs 714. Rs 179 subsidy is given to the beneficiaries of Ujjwala Yojana and Rs 158 subsidy is given to other consumers. For 14.2 kg cylinders, the Ujjwala scheme consumers have to pay Rs 535 and other consumers Rs 556. 

Ishan is a field officer and is also making people aware of the use of cylinders by going village-to-village. “We have convened Ujjwala panchayats. We are making people aware that they are getting health problems from using wood. The same time taken to gather wood can be used by them elsewhere. We have also provided that if the 14 kg cylinder seems costly, the consumer can replace the 14- kg cylinder with a 5-kg cylinder. It will take less money to refill the 5 kg cylinder —between Rs 250 to 300,” he explained.

He said that despite all these efforts, the average of the Ujjwala Yojana consumers’ cylinder refill is very low. The CAG report seconds this. It said: “It is a major challenge to encourage continued use of LPG gas. The annual average refill consumption of the PMUY beneficiaries has declined.”

The average annual refill consumption. Source: CAG

According to the report, the annual average refill consumption of 1.93 crore consumers (who completed one year by March 31, 2018) under the scheme is only 3.66. As of December 31, 2018, based on 3.18 crore Ujjwala customers, the average remained at just 3.21 LPGs annually. This means that a consumer is making around three-cylinder refills a year.

Similar is the case of Anita’s family living in the Cheda village of Barabanki. It has been a year since Anita has been given a cylinder under the Ujjwala Yojana. She has refilled it twice in the year. At present, her cylinder is also lying empty. When asked the last time it was refilled, she said: “It was about three months ago. This one is now empty and shall be refilled only when there is enough money with us. As of now, our income is not regular so it is kept empty.”

At present, the government has come very close to achieving its target of the Ujjwala Yojana amid the challenges of the regular refilling of the cylinder. According to the CAG report, as of March 31, 2019, the oil marketing companies had provided 7.19 crore LPG connections, which is about 90 per cent of the government’s target of providing eight crore connections by March 2020.

(Virendra Singh from Barabanki contributed to this story)