President addresses Parliament, lauds Centre's Ujjwala, Saubhagya schemes

New Delhi: In President Ram Nath Kovind’s speech to the joint session of Parliament on Friday, government’s marquee schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, or the Saubhagya scheme, found special mention.

The Ujjwala scheme is aimed at providing free cooking gas connections, while the Saubhgya scheme aims at household electrification.

Kovind, in his speech, lauded the Narendra Modi-led government for providing 80 million free cooking gas connections and 2.5 crore free electricity connections under the schemes. The government’s Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), which helped bring electricity to all of India’s 597,464 census villages as on 28 April, had set the stage for universal household electrification.

Mint on 15 January had reported that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s plan for India’s most ambitious distribution reform scheme involves reducing electricity losses to less than 12%, negating tariff gaps, and having compulsory prepaid smart metering across the power distribution chain including 250 million households.

The ₹2.86 trillion scheme, aimed at ensuring continuous power supply to all households, involves adopting models such as privatizing state-run power distribution companies (discoms) and having multiple supply, network and distribution franchisees. Tentatively named Atal Distribution System Improvement Yojana (ADITYA) after former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the scheme may be announced in the Union Budget for fiscal 2021 to be presented on 1 February, with the Centre providing funding of up to ₹1.10 trillion.

Ujjwala is one of Modi administration’s flagship pro-poor schemes and is considered the equivalent of Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's rural jobs scheme. The scheme has also found traction internationally. A case in point being energy rich Ghana where state run Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) will help Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority (NPA) expand the country’s liquified petroleum gas (LPG) network.

While the clean fuel protects users from the hazards of smoke inhalation, it also helps the poor from having to go to unsafe areas to collect firewood.

The PMUY met its target of reaching 80 million poor families in September, seven months ahead of schedule. The programme, launched on 1 May, 2016, aims to safeguard the health of women and children and lays the basis for a fundamental material transformation at the bottom of the pyramid by covering 715 districts has till date provided 80.33 million connections.

A cash assistance of ₹1,600 is given to each beneficiary to get a deposit-free new connection, thereby helping improve energy access. The connections are given in the name of the women heads of households.

However, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has expressed concerns over PMUY in terms of low consumption, diversions and considerable delays in supply of cylinders. In a performance audit report, the government’s audit watchdog said encouraging the sustained usage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) remains a big challenge as the annual average refill consumption of PMUY consumers on 31 December, 2018 was only 3.21.

The government, on its part, claims that around 87% beneficiaries have returned for at least second refill, with the total number of refills including installation against PMUY connections crossing more than 40 crore.

Kovind also referred to the women being allowed to work in underground coal mines and open cast coal mines.

The Centre had set a mining target of 1.5 billion tonnes of coal by 2020, in line with the government’s push to raise natural resources production to kickstart economic growth. Of this, Coal India Ltd was expected to produce 1 billion tonnes and the rest was supposed to come from non-CIL sources. This has now been revised down to 1 billion tonnes of coal by 2023-24.

The Parliament’s Budget Session started on Friday amid campaigning for Delhi assembly elections, due on 8 February, nationwide protests against the Citizenship Act, and a slowing Indian economy. India’s economy grew 4.5% in the second quarter, its slowest pace since March 2013, due to a sharp contraction in manufacturing output.

The Economic Survey 2019-20, presented in Parliament today, projected India’s economy to grow at 6-6.5% in the next fiscal starting April 1. The Survey is a report the government presents on the state of the economy in the past one year, the key challenges it anticipates, and their possible solutions.