Shri. Dharmendra Pradhan

Dharmendra Pradhan is the Cabinet Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel in the Government of India. On 31st May 2019, Shri Pradhan began his second consecutive tenure at the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas becoming the first such incumbent in the history of independent India. Shri Pradhan was promoted as a Cabinet Minister on September 3rd,2017. As a Member of Parliament, Shri Pradhan currently represents Madhya Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha and was earlier a member of the 14th Lok Sabha.Born on June 26th, 1969, he hails from the city of Talcher in Odisha. As the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas of India, Shri Pradhan is attributed with several progressive reforms & initiatives implemented in the last five years including consumer initiatives like PAHAL which is the world’s largest Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme and the #GiveItUp campaign, that was liberally supported by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, aimed at encouraging affluent citizens to surrender their LPG subsidy for the needy receiving a successful response of over 10 million consumers. In an attempt to empower rural India with the clean fuel of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas under which 7 million LPG connections have been provided to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families over the past 5 years.