BHUBANESWAR: The women’s wing of ruling Biju Janata Dal on Wednesday said the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has failed in its objective.The scheme is a total failure in the State as people who have got connections are not refilling their LPG cylinders, said president of Biju Mahila Janata Dal Pramila Mallick. Alleging large-scale irregularities in selection of beneficiaries under the scheme, Mallick said free gas connections have been given to ghost beneficiaries and people who already have LPG connection.
Coming down heavily on the Centre for spiralling prices of cooking gas, Mallick said free LPG connection has become a burden on the poor as they are unable to refill their cylinders due to high price of fuel.Claiming that the price of cooking gas has been increased by 22 times after NDA came to power at the Centre in 2014, the former Minister said the Ujjwala scheme will boomerang on the BJP in the next election.
Though Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan claimed to have provided LPG connection under Ujjwala scheme to 30.48 lakh households in the State by end of July, only 6.45 have refilled their cylinders in 2017-18, which speaks volumes of the success of the scheme.
“In Angul, the home district of Pradhan, 1,05,508 gas connections have been provided in the last two years. In 2016-17, only 35,406 refilled their cylinders and the number dropped to 16,950 in 2017-18,” she said.
Mallick said women activists of BJD will stage demonstration in front of regional office of IOCL here on Thursday to protest price hike of cooking gas and corruption in selection of beneficiaries under the Central scheme.