Sambalpur, June 20: The BJD today boycotted the state-level launching ceremony of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana held in the city.

Although the local MP, Nagendra Pradhan, and his Bargarh counterpart Prabhas Singh were invited to the programme, they did not attend the event because party MLAs of Sambalpur district, where the programme was held, were not invited.

Pradhan said: "Though an MLA from Nuapada was invited to the programme, they did not invite the BJD MLAs of Sambalpur district, where the programme was held. Therefore, I chose not to attend."

Nuapada MLA Basanta Panda, who is also BJP state-unit president, was invited to the programme, raising eyebrows. "It seems it was more a party programme than a government one," said Pradhan.

Today's programme was launched jointly by Union minister for tribal affairs Jual Oram and Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan in the presence of Basanta Panda, party MLAs Rabi Naik (Kuchinda), Radharani Panda (Brajarajnagr), Pradeep Purohit (Padampur) and senior BJP leader Suresh Pujari.

BJD and BJP have been vying with each other in western Odisha, in which Sambalpur district falls, to establish supremacy. Earlier, Sambalpur city was represented by BJP in the state assembly. But in the 2014 assembly elections, the seat became BJD's.

Commenting on the absence of the BJD MPs, Pradhan said: "I had invited Sambalpur MP Nagendra Pradhan and Bargarh MP Prabhas Singh. However, I had not written to any MLA to attend the launch of the yojana."

The Union minister announced that three LPG bottling plants would be set up at Khurda, Balangir and Jeypore. The capacity of the existing plants at Jharsuguda and Balasore would be augmented.

Dharmendra Pradhan said: "We aim to provide LPG connection to around 40 lakh new customers in Odisha over the next three years. Of the total, 30 lakh will belong to Below Poverty Line. The connections will be provided by organising camps."

He said there were 32 lakh active LPG consumers in the state now. Of them, 13 lakh had been provided with LPG connections in two years.

"There are 565 LPG distributors in the state. However, we have already given permission to 180 new distributors. They will start functioning shortly. Permission will also be given to 250 more distributors in the state," Dharmendra Pradhan said.