SAUBHAGYA, a Central Government scheme, is related to
- (a)providing cash money to women giving birth of single female child
- (b)connecting kitchen of every household with piped cooking gas
- (c)strengthening and augmenting infrastructure for piped water supply
- (d)achieving universal household electrification in the country
Correct — D, achieving universal household electrification in the country. SAUBHAGYA is the acronym of the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, announced in September 2017 by the Ministry of Power. Its single job was the last mile: giving an electricity connection to every willing un-electrified household, rural and urban. Village electrification had already been declared complete under the earlier Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, but a village counted as electrified once its public places and a tenth of its homes were connected — which left crores of individual houses dark. Households on the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 list got the connection free; everyone else paid Rs 500, recovered in ten instalments through the electricity bill. The outlay was Rs 16,320 crore. As of the 2020 exam the scheme was running; it was closed in March 2022 after about 2.82 crore households had been connected.
- (a)providing cash money to women giving birth of single female child — Cash incentives tied to the birth of a girl child are run by State governments under names like Ladli and Bhagyalakshmi. The Centre's own maternity cash transfer, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, pays for the first living child regardless of the child's sex, so it does not match this wording either.
- (b)connecting kitchen of every household with piped cooking gas — Piped natural gas to kitchens comes through the city gas distribution bidding rounds run by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. The cooking-fuel scheme students confuse with SAUBHAGYA is Ujjwala, launched in May 2016, and that gives free LPG cylinder connections, not piped gas.
- (c)strengthening and augmenting infrastructure for piped water supply — Piped water to every rural household is the Jal Jeevan Mission, announced in August 2019 under the Ministry of Jal Shakti. The urban counterpart is AMRUT. Neither has anything to do with the Ministry of Power.
SAUBHAGYA sits at the end of a chain of electrification programmes and is the only one aimed at the individual house. Rural Electrification Corporation was the nodal agency; the money went to State distribution companies, which then had to reach households that no earlier scheme had counted. The word SAUBHAGYA is built out of Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, which is why the scheme name and the acronym look unrelated at first sight.
Four flagship schemes are deliberately set against each other here, and each belongs to a different ministry. Power gives electricity connections, Petroleum and Natural Gas gives cooking fuel, Jal Shakti gives water, and Women and Child Development gives maternity cash. Fixing the ministry first collapses the option list quickly. The trap the examiner is really testing is the Ujjwala confusion, because both schemes launched within eighteen months of each other and both were sold as household-level last-mile delivery.
- Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGYA) was announced in September 2017 under the Ministry of Power.
- Households identified from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 got a free connection; others paid Rs 500 in ten instalments with the electricity bill.
- Outlay was Rs 16,320 crore, of which gross budgetary support was Rs 12,320 crore; the original deadline was December 2018.
- It succeeded the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, whose village-level definition of electrification left individual homes unconnected.
- The scheme was closed in March 2022 with about 2.82 crore households connected.
Identify the ministry and three options fall away before you have to recall a single date.
- Reading SAUBHAGYA as a girl-child or maternity scheme because the word means good fortune.
- Swapping it with Ujjwala, which is the LPG scheme of the neighbouring ministry.
- Assuming village electrification and household electrification mean the same thing.
Asked as a plain scheme-to-sector match, with the three most-confused household schemes of the same period supplied as distractors.
Saubhagya, a Government of India Scheme, relates to which of the following areas?
- (a) Achieving universal household electrification
- (b) Providing clean cooking fuel to poor households
- (c) Rationalizing subsidies on LPG
- (d) Stopping female foeticide
Answer(a) Achieving universal household electrification
The same question with the same trap set, asked in the CDS paper of the same year. Clean cooking fuel and female foeticide appear there exactly as piped gas and the girl-child cash payment appear here.
The Saubhagya Scheme aims at universal
- (a) LPG connection.
- (b) household electrification.
- (c) primary school education.
- (d) public health insurance.
Answer(b) household electrification.
Asked again a year later in one line. Across three papers the answer never moves, and the LPG option is offered every single time.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Under which Union Ministry was the SAUBHAGYA scheme implemented?
- (a)Ministry of Rural Development
- (b)Ministry of Power
- (c)Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
- (d)Ministry of Jal Shakti
Answer(b) Ministry of Power — Rural Electrification Corporation was the nodal agency for the scheme.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana provides poor households with
- (a)a free electricity connection
- (b)a free LPG cylinder connection
- (c)a piped natural gas connection
- (d)a subsidised solar home lighting system
Answer(b) a free LPG cylinder connection — launched in May 2016 under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.