Priority for the Government is to ensure access to sustainable and clean energy sources;

Task now is to ensure that households with LPG continue to use the clean fuel for cooking purposes through continued refilling, says the Economic Survey

The Economic Survey 2018-19 states that the priority for the government in ensuring access to sustainable  and clean energy sources. Given the close link between the energy consumption and various social indicators, this attains even greater importance. The Economic Survey 2018-19 tabled in Parliament today by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman says that the Government of India initiated a big step in the form of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, providing access to around 7 Crore households under the scheme. The task now is to ensure that households with LPG continue to use the clean fuel for cooking purposes through continued refilling, says the Economic Survey. It says that India has achieved almost 100% household electrification of 21.44 Crore households. While renewable energy capacity has been expanded manifold, fossil fuel based energy is likely to continue.

The Economic Survey says that it is heartening to see a wide acceptance of LPG as the cooking fuel in Urban areas. It says that while the share of LPG as a cooking fuel has increased over the years, the share of households reporting it to be as the primary source of energy for cooking has been low compared with the Urban areas. The access to clean cooking fuel has increased considerably in the recent years.

The Economic Survey states that Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG consumer (DBTL) Scheme namely “PAHAL” in 54 districts of the country on 15 November, 2014 has also been launched to rationalize subsidies based on approach to cut subsidy leakages. As on 5th March, 2019, 24.39 Crore LPG consumers have joined the scheme. The Survey mentions that PAHAL has been recognized by the “Guinness Book of World Records” as the world’s largest direct benefit scheme.

Access to clean cooking fuel: promoting sustained household LPG use through continued refills and subsidy rationalisation. Priority is ensuring access to sustainable and clean energy with emphasis on maintaining household LPG use for cooking through continued refilling and delivery mechanisms. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana expanded LPG connections to millions of households, and subsidy rationalisation through the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme (PAHAL) is presented as the operational mechanism to target subsidies directly and reduce leakage, supporting sustained adoption of clean cooking fuel.