Indian Oil Corporation rubbishes RTI claim of no LPG connections under PMUY scheme in northeastern states

Firstpost published a report by IANS  on 3 July, 2017, titled ‘Six northeastern states had no LPG connections under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, reveals RTI query’. The article noted in six out of eight northeastern states, the Narendra Modi government failed to provide even a single LPG connection under its flagship scheme Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). “The Yojana is an initiative on whose success the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rode to power in Uttar Pradesh, having provided over 4.3 million connections in the state to BPL families. The information was received from Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) through an RTI application by IANS in May. According to the RTI reply, till 8 May, 2017 not a single family benefitted from the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in states like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim,” the article wrote. [caption id=“attachment_3783975” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), however, has clarified that the IANS report is based on an RTI query which was “over two months old” and that the situation in the North East has “undergone a sea change” since then. IOCL has further stated that the Centre’s flagship scheme PMYU was launched in Assam’s Dibrugarh on 13 May and was “subsequently launched in Dimapur (Nagaland) on 31 May; Imphal (Manipur) on 5 June; Itnagar (Arunachal Pradesh) on 11 June and Shillong (Meghalaya) on 19 June”. The IOCL’s statement claimed that these launch were widely covered by state media. The clarification issued by the IOCL further noted that since the launch of the scheme in northeastern states, nearly 31,000 Ujjwala connections have been released by the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) — IndianOil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum Corporation — and LPG has been made available on priority and at a subsidised rates. IANS, in this earlier piece , reported that as of 8 May, just the two BJP-ruled states in North East India, Assam and Manipur, saw five and 27 LPG connections, respectively. IOCL refuted the claims made and said that, “As on date, OMCs have released about 27,000 connections in Assam; 685 connections in Nagaland; 4,000 connections in Manipur while 310 connections in Meghalaya and in Arunachal Pradesh OMCs have been able to release only 24 connections due to procedural clarity awaited from state government about financing the cost of gas stoves.” The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 1 May, 2016, in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to the Assembly election in the state, which was held from 11 February to 8 March this year.