The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has been touted as one of the flagship schemes of the current government. Data suggests that close to 25% of the scheme beneficiaries have not come back to refill their cylinders. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, abbreviated as PMUY,is a flagship scheme of the current government aimed at encouraging the use ofclean cooking fuel (LPG) for domestic purpose concomitantly trying to safeguardthe health of women and children, by preventing chest congestion relateddiseases. Promoting the use of LPG as an alternative to firewood, cow dung andcharcoal, the initiative has also been hailed by the World Health Organisation(WHO) for being a ‘decisive intervention to check the indoor health pollution being faced by the women of the country’. The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 01 May2016, in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. Under this scheme, deposit free gas connectionsare provided to women from families belonging to ‘Below Poverty Line’ category.Assistance of ₹ 1600 is provided to those taking up new LPG connections comprisingsecurity deposit of 14.2 Kg cylinder and domestic pressure regulator; surakshahose; domestic gas consumer card and installation charges. Since, its inception, the scheme has gained momentum and has met thetargets set by the Government, from time to time. Initially, the scheme wasformulated to benefit only certain groups as per the Socio Economic CasteCensus exclusion criteria and was later expanded to include all belonging tothe Below Poverty Line. Despite the increase in the number of connections, arethe ‘beneficiaries’ refilling their cylinders? Let’s find out. By 2020, target is to release gas connections to 80 million families An annual target of 2 crore beneficiarieswas set by the government for each of the three financial years from 2016-17 to2018-19. During the same period, 7.18 crore connections were released i.e.,1.18crore connections more than the target. The current target is 8 croreconnections by 2020. The government has also stated that from 01 April 2014 to 01 June 2019, there has been a steady increase in thenationwide LPG coverage from 55.9% to 94.2%. Further, as per informationprovided by the government, 41% of the beneficiaries under PMUY are thosebelonging to the SC/ ST categories. The official scheme website shows that as on 05 August 2019, a total of 7.67 crore connections havebeen released under PMUY. 27.5% of the total connections in the country are through PMUY As on 01 July 2019, as per data provided by the government in the Lok Sabha, out of a total of 26.43crore LPG connections in India, 7.26 crore connections have been provided underPMUY. This constitutes 27.5% of the total LPG connections in India. Theproportion of connections availed through the scheme and the total number ofconnections can be seen in the following chart. Only the states where therehave been more than a million PMUY connections have been considered for thechart. In the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, about 56.2% of the totalgas connections have been released under PMUY. Even in Odisha, the same standsat around 53%. These are the only 3 states where the percentage of PMUYconnections account for more than 50% of the total connections in the state.This is between 40% and 50% in four other states of Bihar, Meghalaya, MadhyaPradesh & Assam. The percentage for Uttar Pradesh stands at 35%. In 13 States/UTs, the proportion of PMUYconnections out of the total LPG connections is less than 10%. In Delhi, Chandigarh,Daman and Diu and Goa, the percentage of connections under PMUY is less than 2%of the total connections. 75.4% of those who had opted for the scheme before 2019 opted to refill their cylinders Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) reported that about 86% of the beneficiaries of the scheme who availedthe scheme more than a year back came back for refilling their cylinders. UntilMay 2019, 1.67 crore beneficiaries purchased refilled cylinders four times and1.45 crore beneficiaries went on to purchase refilled cylinders five times. On the other hand, data provided by the ministry on the PMUY schemewebsite suggests that 75.4% of those who benefitted under the scheme before2019 went onto refill their cylinders at least once. The data further revealsthat 11.7% of the beneficiaries refilled thrice and 45.8% of them refilled morethan thrice. A total of 28.85 crore refills have been purchased by the beneficiariesby the end of 2018. In the following chart,state wise number of connections installed under PMUY (more than 10 Lakhs) andthe number of people who have gone for refill in these states is plotted. In every state, not everyone has refilled their cylinders.