India, Aug. 3 -- We now prepare boondi only on Tuesdays. Earlier, we were serving the sweet to our customers everyday," says Mansingh, a sweet-maker who has a shop along the Chhata-Barsana road in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura district. "After the government increased the price of commercial cylinders, we have entirely discontinued the use of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas). We now use dung cakes along with firewood to heat up the bhatti. But cooking on earthen stove takes longer, and we have to start at least an hour early, and work two-three hours late," he adds.

Launched in 2016, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a flagship scheme that aims to make clean cooking fuel such as LPG available to rural and deprived households that were using tradit...