Every house in UP to have LPG connection in 1 year: Pradhan
LUCKNOW Stating that there was no scarcity of LPG in the country, union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan hoped that every household in Uttar Pradesh will have LPG connections in the next one year or so.
“When Modi government came to power, only 14 crore houses in the country had LPG connections. At that time, LPG connections were taken in black and even an MP used to get 100 coupons for LPG cylinders a year. But now 21.5 crore houses have LPG connections. The connections are freely available and there is no scarcity of LPG,” he said at a function held at Indira Gandhi Pratishthan auditorium here on Sunday.
At the function, more than 300 new LP G distributors in the state were given letters of intent.
“Before the BJP came to power, there were only 1.68 cr ore connections in UP but now there are 2.88 cr ore connections. Three years back, only 35% of UP families had gas connections but now 77.9 % families have them and 100 % families will have connections in next one year,” Pradhan said.
“After coming to power, the BJP government observed that around 5 crore women lost their lives because of domestic pollu- tion. It was then when we thought of giving connections to everyone in the country,” he said. “It was through Ujjwala scheme that we decided to distribute free gas connections to the poor. In the last just 17 months, the government has distributed more than 3 cro reconnection sand 62 lakh of them are in Uttar Pradesh,” he added.
Taking potshots at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Pradhan said, “Your dynasty ruled India and what you did was to give just 14 crore connections to well-off people. However, we have taken the number to 21.5 cr ore in just three years and gave connections to the poorest of the poor. ” “To ensure proper dispensation of LPG we have decided to increase the number of distributors in UP from 2000 to 3000,” he added. CMYogi Adityanath said, “Last three years have seen revolutionary changes in the petroleum ministry. In the last 20 years of my public life, I used to wonder if our poor will ever get free LPG connection some day. But Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana changed it all.”
300 DISTRIBUTORS GET LETTERS OF INTENT
Letters of intent were given to more than 300 new LPG distributors. Afs ana Parveenf rom Lak himpur was the first to receive the letter. A slain braveheart’s widow Sarita Devi burst into tears while receiving the letter.