60% free cooking gas refills used in 6 months under Ujjwala scheme: Report

Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries have used 60 per cent of the 24 crore free cooking gas refills offered by the government in six months through September, according to a report by The Economic Times.

The data suggests that affordability may not be the biggest factor for quicker adoption of the clean fuel by beneficiaries of the Ujjwala scheme.

In a bid to provide relief to poor families after the Covid-19-forced lockdown was announced in April, the government had offered three free liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) refills to eight crore such households. The Modi-led government transferred money to customers’ bank accounts in advance with the hope that it would encourage them to order refills.

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As per the relief, poor households were eligible for three refills. If all the households opted for this, oil companies would have received 24 crore orders for refills. However, only about 12 crore orders for refills were received during April-June, following which the government extended the scheme by another three months through September. As of September-end, the total number of demands for refills rose to about 14 crore, or 60 per cent of 24 crore available refills.

Around 36 per cent of those who have not availed free refills had used the advance for some other purpose while another 40 per cent were frugal users and didn’t have an empty cylinder at home to order a refill, Gurmeet Singh, marketing chief at Indian Oil Corp, is quoted as saying in the report. These findings were part of a survey conducted by oil companies to understand why consumers were unwilling to order the free refill.

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Until now, it was perceived that affordability alone was the reason behind low cooking gas consumption under the Ujjwala scheme but lower intake of even free refills indicates that many consumers are yet to appreciate the advantages of clean cooking, an industry executive told the publication.

“Policymakers need to design programmes to truly help shift consumer behaviour,” he said.

The government has spent nearly Rs 13,000 crore to give 8 crore poor households free cooking gas connections. This has helped solve the problem of access to clean fuel but its usage remains an area of concern.