Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday lambasted the Odisha government for carrying out false political campaign against the Ujjwala scheme and said that it shows the ruling party’s apprehension about the rising popularity of the welfare scheme among the poor in the State.
The response came a day after Minister for Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Surya Narayan Patro wrote a letter to Pradhan alleging that the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) are not able to avail refilling of LPG cylinders under the scheme due to high rate and thus the programme is losing its objective in the State.
“Since the launch in May 2016, the scheme has covered as many as 35, 16, 384 households but only 8,18,786 beneficiaries have taken the second refill in 2016-17, which further dropped down to 6,45, 265 (18.3 percent of total coverage) for 2017-18 (till July 24, 2018),” Patro had stated in the letter referring to a newspaper report.