Stressing that Pradhan Mantra Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) will ensure empowerment and good health of women in BPL households who will lead a smoke free and less polluted life, Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today informed that this scheme also incorporates an LPG accident insurance cover of Rs. 6 lakh for the consumer.The Minister was speaking after launching the scheme along with Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment, Chowdhary Lal Singh at Udhampur.MLA Udhampur Pawan Gupta was also present on the occasion.Ch. Zulfkar said that the Chief Minister of the state is well versed with the problems faced by the women in the state and it is due to her efforts that the scheme could be extended to the state of Jammu and Kashmir also.
The Minister said that 7,155 beneficiaries have been identified in Udhampur under PMUY while a total of 2,660 beneficiaries have been identified in the district Reasi under the scheme and further directed the District administration Udhampur and Reasi to organize more and more awareness camps regarding the scheme so that more number of beneficiaries can avail benefits of the scheme.He said that as per a survey conducted by the World Health Organization, every year a total of 5 lakh women die due to lung diseases caused by the smoke and stressed that this scheme is aimed at replacing the unclean and unhealthy traditional fuel with the clean and more efficient LPG.Regarding covering all the left out under this scheme, he said that PMUY Plus would ensure that all the beneficiaries who are not covered under the Socio Economic Survey would get covered under the scheme.He further informed that an insurance cover of Rs 6 lakh is provided in case of death per person per event due to an accident while using LPG and compensation of Rs 25,000 would be provided to injured in case of any mishap.
In case of loss of property damage, Rs 2 lakh would be provided to the victim as compensation.Expressing his concern over the decreasing sex ratio, he emphasized on creating mass awareness under Beti Bachao and Bati Padhao Scheme and said that efforts are being made to extend Ladli Beti scheme to the District Udhampur also.Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment, Ch. Lal Singh highlighted the scheme and said that it is a major step towards women empowerment and protecting their health by reducing the labour and time spent on cooking.He maintained that women have a vital role in shaping our society and such women centric schemes will help in their empowerment in a major way.Deputy Commissioner, Reasi Ravinder Kumar, Chief Conservator of Forests Roshan Jaggi, Deputy Controler, Legal Metrology Manoj Prabhakar and other officers of the concerned departments were also present on the occasion.