Ujjwala scheme: Families feel LPG refill pinch, go back to cooking with wood

Hansa Devi, 60, of Sitarampura village in Rajasthan’s Tonk district was happy when she got a cooking gas connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in June 2016. She was till then using firewood to cook food.

Two months later when the cylinder ran out of LPG, she realised she needed to pay ₹750 for a refill. This, she said, is impossible for her, as the only source of income of her family of six is her son, Chona Ram, 30, who works as an agriculture labourer and earns around ₹4-5,000 a month.

Devi has gone back to cooking with firewood.

Same is the story of Gayatri Sharma, 45, of Soda Bawri village. She’s a widow and depends on her 17-year-old son, Ram Prasad, to earn for the family. She got an LPG connection in November 2016, but has gone back to using earthen chulha.

“My mother has breathing problem because of the smoke she inhales in the kitchen every day, but we have no alternative to using firewood – we cannot afford a refill,” the son said, adding that he earns ₹4,000 a month.

At Nayagaon village of Jaipur’s Phagi tehsil, Munni Devi, 60, does get the cylinder refilled but sparingly. Sitting next to a heap of wooden twigs and dung cakes near the LPG stove, she said the stove is used only for quick snacks or for tea for guests; for daily cooking, the earthen chulha is used. The family got three refills in 20 months.

These are some of the families that benefited from the Ujjwala scheme but didn’t get rid of the traditional methods of cooking because of the cost of LPG cylinders. In most houses in villages in Jaipur and Tonk districts that HT visited, firewood was found next to the cylinders. Families said when they got gas connection, they were happy that their days of suffocating themselves in the kitchen will get over – far from it.

On Saturday, when beneficiaries of 12 welfare schemes of central and state governments are brought to Jaipur to interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, probably such families will not be in the crowd. The government wants people who speak good about the schemes and not those who pick faults with them.

Meanwhile, Rampyari Devi, 45, of Shriramganj village of Jaipur will continue to walk more than two kilometres every three days to collect firewood to keep the fire in her kitchen burning.

“We have been suffocating for years and Ujjwala scheme did not change anything,” she said.

State’s minister for civil supplies Babulal Verma said, “The government has helped the poor by giving them free cylinders. The refill cost is a regular expenditure. For the first time, the government has reduced the cost of fuel refilling. For now, in my opinion, there is no alternative for refilling expenditure.”

34 lakh Ujjwala connections in state

The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Modi on 1 May 2016 in Balia, Uttar Pradesh with an aim to replace unclean cooking fuels used in rural India with the clean and more efficient liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Ujjwala intends to help reduce women’s chances of contracting respiratory diseases caused by exposure to hazardous fumes.

The connections are released to women from below poverty line (BPL) households, or those whose monthly family expenditure is less than ₹4,860 in rural areas and ₹7,035 in urban areas with the support of ₹1600 per connection.

Till July 6 this year, 34,04,791 Ujjwala connections have been released in the state. After Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan is at the fourth spot with the highest number of Ujjwala connections.