(ET)
State-run oil companies enrolled a record three crore cooking gas consumers in 2016-17, about twothirds of them from poor families, as part of the government drive to shut hazardous smoke from the kitchens of those who had not yet had access to clean cooking fuel.
The government has mandated oil companies to add 10 crore new cooking gas customers between April 2016 and March 2019. Half of the new connections have to go to poor households under the government’s Ujjwala Yojana.Yojana. “When Modi ji took over as prime minister, the country had 14 crore active LPG consumers, which has today expanded to 19.80 crore. So, we have achieved 5.8 crore in less than three years,” oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. “When we formed government, it used to be less than 1 crore new connections a year,” he said, adding that 3.16 crore connections had been given by March 24.
