An LPG connection removes one barrier to cleaner cooking. Every replacement cylinder presents another: the household must be able to obtain it and afford to keep using it. Ujjwala’s record is best understood through both transactions.
Launched in May 2016, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana offered deposit-free LPG connections to adult women from poor households. By 1 March 2025, the government reported 10.33 crore connections under the scheme. That is a substantial expansion of access to a cooking fuel network, measured in households supplied with a connection. [1]
The figure does not establish that every connected household abandoned firewood, dung or other fuels. That requires evidence about continued use. The distinction was apparent early enough to become a central finding of the national auditor.
What the first audit found
The CAG’s 2019 performance audit examined implementation from May 2016 to December 2018. It acknowledged rapid progress towards the connection target, while recording annual average refill consumption of 3.21 as of 31 December 2018. Sustaining use, the auditor concluded, remained a major challenge. [2]
The obstacles extended beyond the price of fuel. The audit described gaps in the distributor network, long delivery distances and cylinders collected from designated points instead of delivered to the doorstep. It also found shortcomings in beneficiary identification and safety practices. These are findings about the programme’s early period; they should not be recycled as if they described every household in 2026. [2]
Together, they show why issuing a connection was the beginning of implementation. A cylinder that is difficult to replace cannot deliver the same service as one that can be replenished reliably.
The later refill record
A subsequent Cabinet statement reported that average consumption among PMUY consumers had risen from about three refills in 2019–20 to 4.47 in 2024–25. The same decision approved a ₹300 subsidy per 14.2 kg cylinder for up to nine refills during 2025–26. Those terms belong to that financial year; they are not a statement of the subsidy available indefinitely. [3]
The increase supplies evidence of greater average use. An average still cannot reveal how many households cooked exclusively with LPG, how consumption varied by household size, or how many bought few refills. Nor should the early audit figure and later administrative series be treated as a panel tracking the same families.
Ujjwala therefore has two connected achievements to examine: the initial expansion of access and the subsequent effort to make the fuel usable repeatedly. The first is clearly visible in the connection register. The second has to be followed through purchases, delivery and household cooking practices. The programme’s lasting value rests on what happens after the first cylinder runs out.