(FE)
To boost the corpus of the proposed Ujjwala Plus scheme for free LPG connections, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government may allow corporate donations for the scheme to be considered as mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending. “The legal and internal teams are working out the details to check which options can be included in the scheme,” an official from the ministry of petroleum and natural gas said, requesting not to be named.
The other options being looked at are providing benefit for individual donors under section 80G of the income tax Act and accepting international donations conforming to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. Under Ujjwala Plus, free liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connections will be provided to those certified below-poverty line families which were left out in the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011, and will not receive benefit under the government’s Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).
Donations will be sought to provide LPG connections to beneficiaries. However, unlike PMUY, these beneficiaries will not get the connection along with equipment and have to pay for stove and refill. PMUY was launched in May 2016 at Ballia in Uttar Pradesh to provide clean source of cooking fuel to five crore households in the next three years. The first-year target of 1.5 crore beneficiaries was achieved within eight months of the launch of the scheme.
