Agencies
Ahead of general elections, the government on Thursday announced the extension of Rs 300 per LPG cylinder subsidy to poor women under the Ujjwala Yojana for the next fiscal starting April 1.
The government had in October last year hiked the subsidy from Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinders for up to 12 refills per year to Rs 300 per bottle.
The Rs 300 per cylinder subsidy was for the current fiscal, which ends on March 31.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has now decided to extend this subsidy to 2024-25, Union Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters in New Delhi.
The move, likely to benefit nearly 10 crore families, will cost the government Rs 12,000 crore. The general elections are due in April-May. To make Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), a clean cooking fuel, available to rural and deprived poor households, the government launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in May 2016 to provide deposit-free LPG connections to adult women of poor households.
While the connection was provided for free, the beneficiaries had to purchase LPG refills at market price. As fuel prices soared, the government in May 2022 provided a Rs 200 per cylinder subsidy to PMUY beneficiaries.
