Recalibrating India’s clean-cooking strategy
01 Aug 2023 5 mins Download PDF
Rationale behind introduction of PMUY scheme:
- LPG connections are concentrated in Urban and Semi-urban areas mostly to middle class and upper middle-class households.
- Low-income households depend on use of fossil fuels such as Kerosene, coal and wood for regular cooking usage.
- The burning of fossil fuels in a closed or partially closed environments can cause acute respiratory illnesses, pulmonary and lung diseases and WHO reports ~5 lakh deaths associated due to use of unclean cooking fuels.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY):
- Introduced in 2016, a social-welfare scheme with a vision of smoke-free rural India.
- The scheme intends to provide concessional LPG connections to the whole country by 2019.
- Intends to increase LPG usage to low-income and Below Poverty Line (BPL) households and reduce air pollution, deforestation and health disorders among citizens.
- Protect the health of women & children by providing clean cooking fuel and reducing their dependency on conventional cooking fuels which will lower indoor smoke pollution and the risk of related diseases.
- Intended beneficiaries:
- Recipients registered in the SECC-2011 list
- All SC/ST household beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) (Gramin)
- Beneficiaries of the Antodhaya Anna Yojana (AAY)
- Forest dwellers
- Women belonging to the most backward classes (MBC)
- Tribal women working or who have previously worked in tea gardens
- People residing in islands and river islands.
- The PMUY has
- Increased the rural distributor base from 18% to 60% of the total LPG distributor base in the country.
- LPG as primary cooking fuel has increased from 32% in 2011 to 71% in 2020.
Recent issues in implementation of PMUY:
- The issue of home-delivery and distribution channels of cylinders persists.
- Increase in LPG prices due to Russia-Ukraine war and dependent LPG imports and a budget dependent on petroleum taxation, it has decreased the refill of cylinders from 4 per year to two or less in the current year.
- The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing loss of livelihoods and income has pushed rural consumers to usage of LPG cylinders.
- Of the 24 crore cylinders available, only 14.1 crore cylinders were actually consumer in FY21.
A need to relook the clean cooking strategy by shifting from LPG only strategy needs a shift. With ~100% access to electricity connections in the rural areas, e-cooking using induction cook-tops would be a cheaper and an effective alternative as a clean cooking fuel.
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