An assessment of India’s flagship LPG distribution program

• Mar 22, 2021
• 2 min

MSC assessed the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), an initiative of the Indian government to address the need for clean cooking fuel. The project helped the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) encourage the adoption of LPG as a permanent alternative to polluting cooking fuels.

Energy systems, policy support, gender-responsive solutions

The Government of India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in 2016. This program seeks to address the need for clean cooking fuel for 50 million households, especially in the country’s rural and remote areas. The PMUY offered a direct cash subsidy to incentivize households to shift permanently from polluting cooking fuels to LPG. The MoPNG’s challenge was to reach the initial target of 50 million beneficiaries and ensure behavior change, which would lead to LPG’s adoption as a permanent alternative to pollution-emitting cooking fuels.

MSC assessed the implementation in three phases from 2016 to 2018. The research team interviewed 574 PMUY beneficiaries across 124 villages and 44 districts in India.

The assessments enabled us to get the following insights:

• Understand the behavioral triggers that facilitate the adoption of a cleaner energy source;
• Identify the deterrents that prevent the regular refilling of LPG cylinders;
• Identify the reasons for the continued coexistence of LPG and unclean fuels;
• Determine the please impact on gender equilibrium, as women are the program’s primary beneficiaries;
• Recommend measures to the MoPNG to ensure the continued usage of LPG cylinders and permanent abolition of polluting cooking fuels.

MSC published the recommendations as a policy brief, which we presented to the key stakeholders. After the study’s first phase, the Ministry accepted MSC’s recommendations and started the nationwide LPG safety campaign targeted at PMUY beneficiaries. MSC’s interventions helped the program enroll 92 million rural households up to April 2022. MSC estimates that even a 30% switchover to LPG will reduce annual emissions by 6.14 million metric tons at this scale. 

The Gates Foundation and the MoPNG commissioned this project.