Bengaluru: Indrajit Bose, Executive director (Corporate Communications and Branding), IndianOil has said that around 60 villages in Karnataka which have moved away from traditional stoves using firewood and cow dung cakes to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves, have been declared smokeless villages.
He said that out of the 120 smokeless villages in the country, the maximum were in Karnataka. The country’s first smokeless village was Vychakurahalli of Gauribidanur taluk of Chickballapur district.
The task of achieving 100 per cent LPG penetration in the country was undertaken by IndianOil, mainly to improve the lives of rural masses. IndianOil LPG officers adopted a village each to convert it into a smokeless village.
S. Varadachari, General Manager, IndianOil (Karnataka) said, “All villages under Hosur Gram Panchayat at Chickballapur district and Neelasandra Gram Panchayat in Ramanagaram district have been declared smoke-free. We are hoping to have 100 per cent LPG penetration in at least 250 villages in the State by the end of this fiscal” he said.
“When we took up the mission, we faced a lot of resistance from women. They feared that they will not be able to avail rations under the BPL card. We convinced them that LPG was safe by holding awareness campaigns and safety clinics,” he said, and added that IndianOil would also try to get BPCL and HPCL to take up the mission.
