Panipat, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal; and Petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan distributed LPG connections under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) at Panipat. During the distribution, Pradhan revealed Indian Oil’s plan in Panipat.
He informed that Indian Oil would set-up a second generation ethanol blending plant in Panipat on a pilot basis, with an investment of approx Rs 500 crore, to generate fuel from agricultural waste, which will result in additional income to farmers of Haryana. Pradhan told the gathering that 76 Lakh LPG connections have been released under the scheme in a short span of five months since its national launch on May 2016 at Balia, Uttar Pradesh. In the next one year all households of Haryana would have LPG connections, Pradhan affirmed.
He also said that Panipat refinery’s capacity will be augmented to 25 MT with an investment of around Rs 15000 crore and will be producing BS VI fuel by 2020 which will generate additional revenue to the state government.
Pradhan said that the scheme would impact the lives of women from BPL families in a major way by reducing the drudgery of cooking with polluting fuels and go a long way in reducing indoor pollution and other health related problems being faced by them. This scheme aims at providing 5 crore LPG connections to BPL households pan India in three years.
On the occasion, Manohar Lal said that the PMUY is an excellent scheme fulfilling the vision of Prime Minister to provide clean fuel to the BPL families and is a boon to women to experience cooking without smoke. He thanked Pradhan for accepting his suggestion of commencing this scheme in Haryana. Lal took this as an opportunity to speak about the various initiatives of the government to empower women. He also assured that many centres for skill development would be set-up in the state to empower the youth.
