Minister for forests, Ecology and Environment, Lal Singh today said that Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) will ensure empowerment and good health of women in BPL households enabling them lead a smoke free and less polluted life.The scheme also incorporates an LPG accident insurance cover of Rs. 6 lakh for the consumer, the Minister informed.The Minister was speaking after distributing 150 LPG connections among the BPL beneficiaries at Lakhanpur during a function held at Ramleela ground in Kathua.Chief Conservator of Forests Roshan Jaggi, Director SFRI B M Sharma, Additional Deputy Commissioner Bharat Bhushan, Regional Wildlife Warden V S Senthil, Joint Director Social Forestry Roop Avtar Kour, Joint Director Soil Conservation, Divisional Forest Officers of Territorial, Social Forestry, Soil Conservation, Forest Protection Force and Wildlife besides other senior officers of Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs were present on the occasion.
Choudhary Lal Singh said that the Government is well versed with the problems faced by the women in the State, adding that several welfare schemes have been launched to improve their living standards.The Minister said that as per a survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), every year a total of 5 lakh women die due to lung diseases caused by the smoke. He 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 habitations under this scheme, Lal Singh said that PMUY would ensure that all the beneficiaries who are not covered under the Socio Economic Survey would get covered under the scheme soon. He, further, informed that an insurance cover of Rs 6 lakh is also being provided in case of due to any accident while using LPG. Besides, compensation of Rs 25,000 would be provided to injured in case of any such mishap. In case of loss of property damage, Rs 2 lakh would be provided to the victim as compensation.
The Minister highlighted the importance of PMUY 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.Choudhary Lal Singh said that PMUY scheme is also more beneficial for the women residing in hilly areas who generally use firewood for cooking. “The Government has decided to address their problems and lend them a helping hand by providing them free LPG connections” he said adding that speedy verification of the beneficiaries will be ensured to enable them get supply of cylinders soon.