NEW DELHI: The government will complete the task of giving LPG connections free of cost to five crore poor households across 715 districts under the ‘Ujjwala’ programme on Friday, achieving the target originally set for one of PM Narendra Modi ’s signature social schemes nearly eight months ahead of schedule.

Sources said Speaker Sumitra Mahajan is expected to hand over the ‘Ujjwala Connection No. 5 Crore’ to the selected beneficiary at a function in Parliament in the presence of oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the main driver behind the scheme’s blistering pace.

Ujjwala aims at bringing clean cooking fuel to poor households, identified according to the Socio-Economic Caste Consensus (SECC), and has proven to be one of the Modi government’s key platforms for political outreach. The scheme, together with the Centre’s village electrification plan, fuelled BJP's rise in the run-up to the 2017 UP polls.

The scheme was launched by the PM on May 1, 2016, in Ballia district in UP with a target of providing free LPG connections to five crore poor households by March 31, 2019, and a budgetary allocation of Rs 8,000 crore. Right from the word go, the scheme consistently progressed ahead of schedule. Encouraged by the rapid progress, the government in February raised the target to eight crore poor households by 2020 with an additional outlay of Rs 4,800 crore.

This was done with the aim of going beyond the SECC to expand the list of Ujjwala beneficiaries, a move that will help widen the ruling party’s political reach as it heads for 2019 general elections. The expanded list now includes all SC/ST households, PM Awaas Yojana (Gramin), Antodaya Anna Yojana beneficiaries, forest dwellers, Most Backwards Classes, tea garden workers and island dwellers.

Beyond politics, the scheme is yielding a social dividend by safeguarding the health of women and children in poor households. More than 44% of Ujjwala beneficiaries are currently are from SC/ST communities. Women from such households no longer have to suffer the drudgery of collecting firewood or dried dung-cakes, neither do they have to inhale smoke from such fuels — identified by the World Heath Organisation as a major cause of respiratory diseases and untimely deaths.

India is home to more than 24 crore households, 10 crore of which are still deprived of LPG as a cooking fuel and have to rely on firewood, coal, dung-cakes etc as primary cooking fuel.

