Letter to Editor: The government has decided to cut off subsidy on cooking gas which has resulted in creating tremendous pressure on budgeting household expense for middle class people
To,
The editor
ABC Newspapers
Address
Sub: Impact on budgeting household expenses after government announcement on cutting off the subsidy on cooking gas.
Sir,
I am writing this letter to express my views through the column of your prestigious daily, by sharing the impact on middle class people after government announced to cut off the cooking gas subsidy. I also want to attract the attention of the concerned authorities by this column.
According to study the subsidy on LPG cylinders for India’s newly-connected 73 million poor households should be increased enough to limit the cost of a cylinder to 4% of a household’s monthly expenditures.
I know this will not effect the rich class people. But according to a survey only 10 percent people’s income is greater than 10 lack p.a. among who use cooking gas in our country. This is not burden for them, it is burden for the rest 90 percent who came from middle and poor class people in our country. Government has distributed over 100 million conection under its 7 Ujjwala scheme to poor households. Which rose over 40 percent connection of LPG cylinders since 2014. In this scheme government gives new connection to poor households in only 300 rupees. Beneficiaries under this scheme now only took 3.5 refuel of the cylinders annually. But after this post-covid situation during this rapid growth of fuel and cooking gas this data may change. After gas price cross 1000 which is nearly 25 percent of the Ujjwala beneficiaries 25 percent monthly income if remove the subsidy there annual refill may decrease more. This will never complete Government goal of strengthening the Ujjwala scheme which is important to mitigate the health burden of India.
Burning firewood, dung and agricultural residue for cooking and other household uses accounts for 25-30% emissions of carbon dioxide in the country. Each year, around 480,000 Indians die prematurely due to direct exposure to household air pollution, and another 270,000 succumb to indirect exposure outdoors, the policy brief stated. Using cooking gas can help prevent such deaths, as well as reduce government expenditure on treating ailments that result from exposure to biomass fumes.
Now coming to benefits of this decision, people will switch to electric oven who can afford it. Which will lower the dependency on fossil fuel. But this is negligible because vast pollution of our country cannot afford such technologies.
According to Collaborative Clean Air Policy Centre (CCAPC) “The Subsidy should only be provided to poor households, and the wealthy should be removed from the beneficiaries list and government should introduce a new policy titled “Ujjwala 2.0”.” With these two changes the central government’s Ujjwala scheme can help poor families make cooking gas their primary cooking fuel, and not burn firewood and cow dung, the easily available biomass fuels.
According to me these two changes the central government’s Ujjwala scheme can help poor families make cooking gas their primary cooking fuel, and not burn firewood and cow dung, the easily available biomass fuels. I also want to attach, according to a study majority of people support this decision of
removing gas , so it’s should be easier for related authorities to introduce such scheme. By this letter I want to apeal to relative authorities to express their concern and take quick necessary action regarding this.
Thanking you.
Sincerely,
XYZ,
Address
Date-