IMPACT OF PRADHAN MANTRI UJJWALA YOJANA ON IMPROVING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF WOMEN

The core component of human growth solely depends on clean, structured, and efficient energy sources that ultimately affect economic growth. The present study delves into the impact of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in Bihar. It assessed how well the scheme had helped in rural areas to improve the living standard of rural women. A total of 100 women households from 4 villages of 2 blocks under Samastipur district were included in the study. The socio-economic status shows that 49 per cent of respondents were aged between 31-45 years having annual family incomes of 50000 to 100000. 55% of the respondents have 4 or fewer members in the family, 93 % of respondents possess one gas cylinder, with 97% have a gas stove with two burners. Most of the respondents performed the role of homemaker and farmer as their primary and secondary occupations. Considering the impact, the scheme had a medium impact on 61% of respondents followed by high on 29% and low on 10% of the respondents. Further, the factors affecting the impact level were analyzed through multiple linear regression to determine the variance on the dependent variable. R-square value 0.632 depicts that about 63% of the variance in impact is caused by the eleven factors combinedly. Among the factors, the age of the respondents, social participation, and family income are positively significant at 1 per cent level of significance (p<0.01), mass media exposure and education are positively significant, and the size of the family is negatively significant at 5 per cent level of significance (p<0.05). The research findings suggest that the sustainability of the yojana depends on the social and economic condition of the respondents even after it has good impact among the beneficiaries. So, government should take appropriate measures to improvise the purchasing power of the beneficiaries.