New Delhi: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan said on Wednesday that one crore more Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) connections will be provided in the country under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana” (PMUY).
In order to provide clean cooking fuel to poor households, the Union Government had launched “PMUY” scheme to provide 5 Crore deposit- free LPG connections, which were subsequently increased to 8 Crore, he said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
The target of scheme has already been achieved in September, 2019.
Implementation of PMUY has resulted increase in national LPG coverage to from 61.9 Percent as on 1 April 2016 to 99.5 Percent as on 1 January 2021.
As on January 1, 2021, total number of LPG consumers in the country is 28.74 crore. Odisha is having 88.30 Lakh Domestic LPG Consumers.
In the Union Budget announcement on February 1, 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced to provide one crore more LPG connections under PMUY.
Notably, oil marketing companies (OMC) have commissioned 7208 LPG distributorships from 1 April 2016 to 1 January 2021 to meet the increased demand of LPG consumers.
As on January 1, 2021, there are 199 LPG bottling plants running across the country. Generally, OMCs endeavour to make delivery of refill within 48 hours after the booking of the refills, the Minister said.
The prices of petroleum products including LPG in the country are linked to the prices of respective products in the international market.
The OMCs have reported that as on 1 February 2021, 1.08 crore LPG consumers have given up their subsidy.
The prices of petroleum products including LPG in the country are linked to the prices of respective products in the international market.
However, the Government continues to modulate the effective price to consumer for Subsidised Domestic LPG and the consumers get the products at subsidised rate.
The subsidy on Subsidised Domestic LPG increase/decrease with the increase/decrease in the product price in international market and decision of Government on subsidy.
The Union Minister also said the crude oil price fluctuates on a daily basis in the international market
Prices of petrol and diesel have been made market-determined with effect from 26 June 2010 and 19 October 2014 respectively.
Since then, the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) take appropriate decision on pricing of petrol and diesel in line with international product prices and other market conditions.
The OMCs have not only increased but also decreased the prices of petrol and diesel in line with changes in international prices and rupee dollar exchange rate.
The public sector OMCs have implemented daily revision of Retail Selling Price (RSP) of petrol and diesel in the entire country with effect from June 16, 2017.
The daily pricing has been introduced to bring more transparency and efficiency in pricing to benefit consumers, the Union Minister said.