From Firewood to LPG: The Journey of India’s Rural Households
The rural Indian population is mostly dependent on firewood and other unclean fuel sources for cooking. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015 –16, 55.7 percent of the rural population used wood as their primary cooking fuel source. Burning firewood for cooking can be dangerous for health in many ways, especially for kids and women. Pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter are present in smoke produced from burning wood can cause diseases like lung cancer, tuberculosis and asthma.
The negative impact of using wood as fuel source is not just limited to health of people but it also have a heavy impact on the environment like deforestation, which lead to landslides as trees are the important element which make sure soil is stable mainly in hilly areas like Himalayan states of India like Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and etc. as per the disaster management department. The number of major landslides in Himachal Pradesh has increased six times over the past three years, with 117 occurring in 2022.
It’s important to make sure the reducing the use of wood as a cooking fuel source but the question here is why its rural population of India use unclean fuel sources like Biomass, Wood, Grass, Coal, Kerosene as its fuel source rather than LPG the answer will be lack of awareness in rural areas many people in rural population is unaware about the use of LPG cylinder as fuel source for cooking and continue to practice the old traditional methods which are followed by the house elders and the other important reason for not using LPG in rural areas are price of LPG cylinders and lack of Effective Distribution many rural areas are mostly not connected to LPG distributers which make hard for people to obtain LPG cylinders on time and are forced to use other available fuel sources.
To make sure the rural population use LPG as cooking fuel government launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) on 1st May 2016, as per ministry of petroleum and natural gas approxly 103.33 Million connections were released under PMUY till 15 July, 2024 the main goal of this scheme was to make sure rural population get the access of LPG cylinders and reduce the usage of unclean fuel for cooking, According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019 –21, 43.2 percent of the rural population are now using clean fuel like natural gas, electric stove and LPG as their cooking fuel source But still 56.8 percent are using unclear and traditional fuels the reason behind this is increasing the price of LPG as per PMUY the first cylinder is provided for free of cost but the refill costs are not free subsidy are included but still it make unaffordable for rural and poor people, as per petroleum planning and analysis cell (PPAC) the LPG prices reached INR 1103 per cylinder in 2023 which resulted in reducing the refill percentage of LPG gas even in 2024 when the LPG prices are approximately INR 800 – 900 it still make hard and unaffordable for poor people to buy the LPG cylinders.
The switch from firewood to LPG has been good for health and the environment, but rising LPG prices keep forcing rural households to use unclean fuels again. Making sure that LPG is available and affordable is important for keeping these good changes going and encouraging better cooking in rural India.
