In 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Ujjwala Yojana in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia. The scheme was envisaged to provide eight crore gas connections by March 2020. So far, nine crore connections have been given under the scheme.
However, due to the exorbitant price of LPG cylinders, which is currently hovering around Rs 1,100, many poor households are struggling to refill their cylinders. Consequently, they are moving back to cooking on firewood. In fact, during the launch of the scheme, Modi had said the idea of the scheme was to protect women cooking on firewood who end up inhaling smoke released by 400 cigarettes in a day.
We went to some rural areas of Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh and spoke to women to find out more about the scheme.