CHENNAI: Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi will inaugurate the scheme for distributing free cooking gas connections and free LPG stoves to those who do not have a connection, on Bhogi day in Chennai.

State Ministers will distribute the connections at district headquarter towns the same day.

On that day, 30,000 connections will be given. At the village level, the Government will constitute a committee comprising the panchayat president, village administrative officer, school headmaster, family health worker and a representative from a non-governmental organisation to identify the beneficiaries. In urban areas, the committee will be headed by the Ward Member and will comprise the Bill Collector, a Revenue department official, school headmaster or teacher and a social worker.

This was decided at a meeting chaired by the Chief Minister at the Secretariat on Monday. This financial year, three lakh connections will be given. Of this, 1.5 lakh connections will be issued by the end of January 2007.

The remaining will be distributed by March-end. Over the next four years, all the families that do not have a connection will be provided with one. Eligible households will be selected on the basis of the ration card.

Initially, people who draw their rations from PDS outlets that have 200 cards will be given the connections. Later, this will be extended to shops that have 500 cards. In the first phase, villages in a radius of 15 km from cities will be selected and existing agencies asked to supply them gas.

In the next financial year, the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation will identify areas where no distributors exist and take up the responsibility of reaching the cylinders there.

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