First International Conference on LPG Inaugurated In Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: The International Conference on LPG cooking gas was inaugurated by Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu in the presence of Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan here on Thursday.

The conference was organized by Research and Development Initiative along with leading Public Sector oil companies – Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.

It was attended by more than 300 delegates from more than ten countries. More than two dozen speakers and delegates from various countries such as Brazil, Guatemala, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, Nepal, Bhutan, Indonesia, Cameroon and Sri Lanka participated in the two-day-long conference.

Droupadi Murmu lauded the efforts of the central government in ensuring the access of LPG to the poorest of poor in the rural areas of the country. She recounted her experience as a village dweller with no access to LPG.

She emphasized that the present government intervention in LPG sector will result in significant improvement in the convenience of women. Murmu expressed confidence that this international conference will provide a suitable platform to improve the LPG distributor network.

Pradhan emphasized the changes heralded under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He stressed upon changes in the narrative of LPG, which is being seen as a catalyst for social change and not as a source of profit.

He also stressed upon various initiatives taken by Union government to ensure the reach of LPG to households of rural India which is currently suffering very badly from indoor air pollution.

He informed the gathering that now only 74 million people are using around 24 million MT of LPG through a network of 18000 distributors across the nook and corner of the country.

He complimented the officers of PSUs and all stakeholders for having taken effective steps for making LPG affordable and hence accessible to the poorer. He expressed confidence that the conference will provide the necessary roadmap to learn and adopt the best practices from across the globe.`

Earlier in the inaugural session, Lakshmi Puri, UN Assistant Secretary General & Deputy Executive Director UN Women, elaborated the vision of United Nations to provide clean and green sustainable energy to everyone.

She appreciated the efforts taken by MoPNG in ensuring the energy access to most vulnerable society of rural villages which will impact the lives of women and girls living in the villages.