1.96 lakh BPL households in Meghalaya will be covered under GSA

SHILLONG, APR 23: Over 1.96 lakh below poverty line (BPL) households in 11,076 villages in Meghalaya are targeted to be covered under the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (GSA), which aims at providing free LPG connection.

Informing this at a press conference held here on Monday, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) state level coordinator SS Thangkhiew said the households in the 11,076 villages have to be covered within May 5.

“Once all these villages are covered with LPG connection, they will be declared as smokeless villages,” he said.

Admitting that it is a huge task, Thangkhiew said that as of today, the LPG penetration in Meghalaya is only 29 per cent, which is the lowest in the country.

Under this special initiative, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has directed all the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to provide gas connection under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to all the households (1,96 lakh) in these villages.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 1, 2016 in Ballia Uttar Pradesh with the aim of providing clean cooking fuel to BPL women and reducing the drudgery and hazard of biomass cooking.

Under this scheme the BPL families are given LPG connection with a support of Rs 1600 per connection from the Central Government. The beneficiaries are given an option of taking the burner and the first refill on loan or by paying the amount upfront.

Identification of the BPL families is done based on the Socio Economic Census Data of 2011.

For the purpose of achieving the targeted households under Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, he said the documents that are required include ration card, SC/ST certificate, bank account and voter’s identity card (EPIC).

He said the SC/ST certificate of any member of the family is enough for applying for connection, Ration Card (name of the applicant should appear in the BPL Ration Card) and EPIC card.

Bank account is also mandatory as the subsidy amount of the refills would go to the beneficiaries of this scheme, he said.

At the same time, Thangkhiew said as per our experience and feedback received during the awareness campaign it has been realized that the main issue in carrying out this scheme is unavailability of SC/ST certificates and Bank Accounts.

He said to rectify the problems efforts are being made to take help from the state machinery to expedite the process of issuance of SC/ST Certificate and help is being sought from the bank to facilitate the opening of zero balance bank accounts.

“We therefore request the eligible households to visit the nearest distributors along with the mentioned documents and two photographs and avail the benefits of LPG Connection free of cost,” he said.

By Our Reporter