Cooking ‘dosa’ for the Prime Minister 

Srividya P.V. 
 
KRISHNAGIRI, May 29, 2018 00:00 IST

What’s cooking?:Narendra Modi with Ujjwala Yojana beneficiaries in Hosur in Tamil Nadu.Special Arrangement 

Three women chat with the PM about their switch from firewood to LPG stoves

It’s not every day that you get a request from the Prime Minister to cook dosa for him. But for three lucky women from Shoolagiri taluk in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu, Monday happened to be that day.

At first, Rudramma was quite casual about the call she got from the local gas agent, informing her about a proposed “meeting” with the Prime Minister. “I said I can't come, I have an infant to take care of,” she says. “But they compelled me, told me to arrange for someone to take care of the child.” That was on Friday.

On Monday, Ms. Rudramma became one of the three women beneficiaries from Tamil Nadu, under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (a government scheme that seeks to replace unclean cooking fuels with LPG in rural India), to interact with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over video conference. By the end of her interaction, her initial indifference had turned into exhilaration.

With the Indian Oil Corporation’s coordinator as the translator, the women responded to the PM’s queries.

“He asked us how we liked the new gas stoves. I said it was helping us cook faster than before. Then he asked us if we cook idli and dosa, and we said yes,” says Rudramma. “He then said that he will come home next time and that we should cook dosa for him. Now I’m waiting for everyone in the village to come back from work in the evening, so that I can tell them all that I spoke to the PM.”

“I’m just very happy,” says Chandra, who also took part in the interaction. “I told the PM, no more burning eyes, no more struggles to light up the firewood, no more embers to deal with.”

Ms. Rudramma, Ms. Chandra and Eashwari, who belong to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and the Most Backward Community, respectively, at Melumalai village in Shoolagiri, were given LPG connections in April.

As new entrants to the scheme, the women had been short-listed by the local gas agent at the request of the IOC. The videoconference was held at the Krishnagiri Collectorate in the presence of Collector C. Kathiravan. Such interactions with beneficiaries were arranged for seven States in the country, and one district each was picked up at random in each of those states to gauge the performance of the scheme.