Around 500 million people in India still struggling to access clean cooking solutions as per recent report

The cumulative emission accounts for around 340 million tonne of CO2 into the environment every year, comprising 13% of India’s national greenhouse emission. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was re-launched in May 2016, which was aimed to replace solid fuels and other biomass-based polluting cooking fuels with LPG in rural and urban households. Yet, unexpectedly, over 50% of the households that received these cylinders did not choose to refill it, despite over 300 million people were brought under the scheme.

It is estimated that it will cost around roughly Rs 1-5 lakh crore for the implementation and procurement of e-cooking devices, utensils and electricity. The report aims to understand and provide a roadmap for large-scale adoption of e-cooking for rural households, emphasizing that intervention must have a relatively more significant impact compared to the urban counterpart as only 57% of the rural population has access to LPG while 90% of the urban ones have access to LPG and possess the infrastructure to use e-cooking.

Read Also : IndusInd Bank Q1 FY25 results, net profit at 2% YoY

The report estimates a peak power demand of about 320 GW from e-cooking which can be managed with effective load management measures as well as capacity addition of about 80 GW over a period of 16-22 years. As of March 2023 the average cost for a refill of an LPG cylinder of around 14 kg was approximately Rs 1,100 across India. The average household needs eight such cylinders in a year which cost around Rs 8800 on yearly basis.

Read Also : RBI issues guidelines on higher liquidity coverage ratio for retail deposits

As per NITI Aayog’s Tenth Five-year Plan, the average annual income of a BPL family is capped at Rs 27,000 which corresponds to spend one-third of the person’s annual income on cooking fuel alone.

Read Also : India assumes the Chair of Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre