The ministry of petroleum and natural gas has decided to extend the benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to the people of hilly states including north-east states by treating them as ‘priority states’ and release LPG connections to the eligible beneficiaries.

According to the ministry, till now, more than 50 lakh connections have been released to the beneficiaries.

The move has been made by the ministry to address difficulties faced by people belonging to economically weaker background who are residing in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Tripura in using LPG for cooking purposes.

The Ujjwala Yojana was launched by the Narendra Modi government on May 1 this year from Ballia in Uttar Pradesh. Under the scheme, the government aims to provide LPG connections to BPL households in the country and replace the unclean cooking fuels mostly used in the rural India with the clean and more efficient LPG.