Bhupen Goswami 

 GUWAHATI :On 1st May 2016, the Prime Minister of India, Shri. Narendra Modi had launched the Pradhan MantriUjjwala Yojana under the aegis of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas for providing LPGconnectionstowomen fromBelowPovertyLine(BPL)households.

The scheme aimed at empowering women, protecting their health, reducing their drudgery and the time spent in cooking is benefitting millions of women living in there motest places across India. Shri. Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs & Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, and Shri. Som Parkash, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, are personally instructing and encouraging various government organizations in taking innovative steps in ensuring the success of the various social welfare schemes initiated by the government. Thus, recognizing the need to create awareness among these beneficiaries on the safe handling and usage of the LPG connection and equipment, Shri. P. Kumar, Chief Controller of Explosives, PESO took the initiative and designed a unique LPG Panchayat program entailing a series of workshops to be organized across the country by the major oil and gas marketing companies. As part of this initiative, a LPG Panchayat has been organized by Indane Divisional Office, Guwahati and Guwahati Refinery today (31.12.2022), which is inaugurated and presided over by Shri P.Kumar, CCOE, PESOat Training Centre, Guwahati Refinery, Noonmati. Shri S.P.Singh, Executive Director & Refinery Head, Guwahati Refinery and other senior officials of all the Oil Marketing Companies(OMCs) and LPG distributors of nearby areas attended the event that saw the participationofmorethan70Ujjwala Beneficiaries from in and around Guwahati City. Divisional LPG Head of Guwahati Indane Divisional Office, Guwahati, IOCL & their team imparted and demonstrated various safety tips on safe use of LPG to the participants. At the end, Shri. P. Kumar thanked the OMCs for conducting this event that will go a long way in spreading the much needed awareness on safety that will be effective in reducing domestic LPG accidents. He also requested OMCs to take this LPG Panchayat to the remotest villages across India. Shri. P. Kumarhas also ensured that some of PESO’s services are made available on line there by making it very easy for customers to access and apply for permissions/approvals and extensions of existing plants. This is in line with the government’semphasisonusingtechnologytowardseaseofbusiness.Shri. P. Kumar has also granted permissions to OMCs to set up Hydrogen manufacturing plants and dispensing facilities to further the Go-Green drive. Here it is worth recalling that Shri. P. Kumar was also in the forefront during the first and second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in the country when he himself undertook steps for installation of cryogenicstorage tanks in hospitals and facilitated the cryogenic storage tank manufacturers in increasing the fabrication of cryogenic storage tanks by granting all approvals and license within 48 hours from the date of submission of application. He was conferred the Covid Warrior recognition by Shri. Bhagat Singh Koshyari, the Governor of Maharashtra.