Nine years after the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) was launched to provide affordable and clean cooking fuel to poor families, the Niti Aayog will conduct an evaluation of the scheme and targeted subsidy to PMUY beneficiaries on aspects such as scope for further improvement, equity and relevance.
The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office of the Niti Aayog has invited proposals from consultants to evaluate the scheme. The last date for submission of proposals is February 17. The selected agency would analyse the effectiveness, impact, efficiency, sustainability, coherence and convergence of the scheme, launched in 2016. In addition to deposit-free LPG connections, Ujjwala 2.0 also provides beneficiaries with free first refill and stove.
The Centre’s spending on PMUY went up from Rs 3,720 crore in FY20 to Rs 8,500 crore in FY24. The objective of the scheme is to provide deposit-free LPG connections to adult women from below poverty line (BPL) households. PMUY envisages the selection of beneficiaries from BPL families identified from the Socio Economic and Caste Census list or BPL families covered under other categories.
PMUY had originally committed itself to a target of 50 million LPG connections between 2016-17 and 2018-19. Upon saturation of the target, additional connections were approved under the scheme in phases, taking the number of beneficiaries up to over 100 million.
Under targeted subsidy to PMUY consumers, the Centre provided a subsidy of Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinder for up to 12 refills per annum since May 2022. In October 2023, the government increased the targeted subsidy to `300 per 14.2-kg cylinder for up to 12 refills per annum. The subsidy is credited directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries through oil marketing companies.
The Centre’s targeted subsidy outgo rose from Rs 4,745 crore in FY23 to Rs 7,490 crore in FY24.