Inability to access benefits made available to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families, affordability of LPG gas cylinders, and irregular payment of LPG subsidies are some of the troubles faced by tribal families that got access to the Centre’s Ujjwala yojana.
A survey carried out by Disha, an NGO that works with tribals found that of 1080 BPL families that had been surveyed, 88% found themselves being converted as Above Poverty Line (APL) families in government records.
The survey was carried out in fifteen blocks of four tribal districts of Aravalli, Sabarkantha, Dahod and Panchmahals.
Paulomi Mistry of Disha said that what has effectively happened is that the moment the families accessed the Ujjwala yojana, in the government records they were shown as APL families. “Even though the first cylinder is free, the families are too poor to buy the subsequent cylinders. But since the BPL families get categorised as APL families after accessing the scheme, their access to subsidised kerosene which was the fuel they used earlier also gets affected. Thus, they are forced to buy kerosene at market price,” said Mistry.
She said that this has also become a quick way for government to bring down the poverty numbers while in fact on the ground there is no considerable decline in poverty.
The survey also found that 96% of the beneficiaries were unable to access the subsequent LPG cylinders and many had to get back to wood as a source of fuel. It should be noted that under the scheme the government provides the first LPG cylinder free to the beneficiary.
The survey added that since under the scheme the beneficiaries are required to pay the market price for the LPG cylinders and the government is to reimburse them the subsidy directly in their bank account, 308 families that had managed to buy the LPG are yet to get their subsidies. It said due to the irregular subsides the poor do not trust the scheme. It found that it would be more beneficial for the government to directly subsidise the LPG cylinder so that the beneficiaries will only have to pay the difference
“It is a good scheme that has been poorly implemented. It assumed that the poor will be able to afford the price of the cylinder for the time being until the government subsidy comes but that is not the case,” said Hemant Kumar Shah, who carried out the study.