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
Correct — A, Achieving universal household electrification. Saubhagya is the shorter name for Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, announced in September 2017 by the Ministry of Power to take an electricity connection into every household that still lacked one. The outlay was Rs 16,320 crore, of which Rs 12,320 crore was gross budgetary support. Households identified from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011 got the connection free; others paid Rs 500, recoverable in instalments with their electricity bills. The original target was December 2018. The scheme was declared closed in March 2022, by which point about 2.82 crore households had been connected. Note the contrast the paper is fishing for: the clean-cooking-fuel scheme is Ujjwala, not Saubhagya.
- (b)Providing clean cooking fuel to poor households — That is Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, launched in May 2016 to give LPG connections to women from poor households. Both schemes are aimed at the same families, which is why they are so often paired as distractors.
- (c)Rationalizing subsidies on LPG — Subsidy rationalisation on cooking gas was the work of the direct benefit transfer scheme PAHAL and of the GiveItUp campaign. Neither has anything to do with electricity connections.
- (d)Stopping female foeticide — That is the domain of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act. It is included here only as a clearly off-sector option.
Two different things get called rural electrification and it is worth keeping them apart. Village electrification, the target of the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana and its predecessors, counts a village as electrified when the distribution infrastructure reaches it and ten per cent of its households plus the public places are connected. Household electrification, which Saubhagya took on, counts each home. That is why India could report all villages electrified in April 2018 and still have crores of unconnected homes.
Scheme-name questions reward one clean association each. Saubhagya means good fortune and pairs with bijli — electricity; Ujjwala means bright and pairs with the LPG cylinder; PAHAL is the cash transfer of the cooking-gas subsidy. Once the pair is fixed, options (b) and (c) fall away together. Present-day note: Saubhagya was declared closed in March 2022 after about 2.82 crore connections, so a student reading this today should treat it as a completed programme rather than a running one.
- Saubhagya is Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, announced in September 2017 under the Ministry of Power.
- Its goal was universal household electrification — a connection for every un-electrified home.
- The outlay was Rs 16,320 crore, including Rs 12,320 crore of gross budgetary support.
- Households identified from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 received free connections; others paid Rs 500 in instalments.
- The scheme was declared closed in March 2022 after about 2.82 crore households were connected.
- Swapping Saubhagya and Ujjwala — one is electricity, the other cooking gas.
- Treating all villages electrified as meaning all households electrified; the two counts are different.
As a scheme-to-sector identification, or as a statement-set on the electrification targets and how they were counted.
The Saubhagya Scheme aims at universal
- (a) LPG connection.
- (b) household electrification.
- (c) primary school education.
- (d) public health insurance.
Answer(b) household electrification.
The same scheme asked again a year later, with the LPG option kept as the leading distractor both times. That repetition is the point worth taking away: this pair is examined more or less annually.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is associated with which one of the following?
- (a)Household electricity connections
- (b)LPG connections for women of poor households
- (c)Piped drinking water supply
- (d)Rural housing
Answer(b) LPG connections for women of poor households — launched in May 2016, and the usual companion distractor to Saubhagya.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Saubhagya, the household electrification scheme, was announced under which one of the following ministries?
- (a)Ministry of Rural Development
- (b)Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
- (c)Ministry of Power
- (d)Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
Answer(c) Ministry of Power — the scheme's formal name is Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana, announced in September 2017.