In the run-up to the general elections next year, government is pushing for 5 kilogram (KG) liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in order to increase the consumption in rural India, sources privy to the developments told CNBC-TV18.

PMUY aims at providing clean-cooking fuel to the poor households and to bring in affordable LPG connection and refills for the rural India.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) have already organised over 21,000 special camps for pushing 5 KG LPG cylinder. Data from the last two months have shown that over one lakh customers opted for 5 lakh cylinders and over 1.4 lakh refills were sold by the OMCs.

The average per capita consumption nationally is about 7 refills and under Ujjwala, it's close to 4.3 refills per household. The government is looking at WhatsApp and missed call services to expand the reach of the scheme.

PMUY was launched on May 1, 2016 by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas, aims to provide clean cooking fuel to women belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL).

The scheme is a part of a larger programme of adding ten crore new LPG connections by 2019 to achieve full coverage of connections in Indian households.