New Delhi, 7 March

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 1 April.

The government had in October, 2023, 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 31 March.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has now decided to extend this subsidy to 2024-25, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said.

The move, likely to benefit nearly 10 crore families, will cost the government Rs 12,000 crore.
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.

For Ujjwala beneficiaries, the price was Rs 603 after considering the Rs 300 per cylinder subsidy, which is directly paid into the bank accounts of connection holders.

The targeted support to PMUY consumers encourages them for continuous use of LPG.
The average LPG consumption of PMUY consumers increased 20 per cent from 3.01 refills in 2019-20 to 3.68 in 2021-22. All PMUY beneficiaries are eligible for the targeted subsidy scheme.