NEW DELHI: The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) carried out the Multiple Indicator Survey (MIS) covering the entire country in its 78th round. The survey says that over 50 per cent of rural households do not use a clean source of energy for cooking food.
Overall, around 37 per cent of households still use polluted sources of energy for cooking purposes. It raises questions over the success of the Government of India’s flagship scheme, Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (PMUY), under which over 9.58 crore households received LPG cylinders.
However, in a stark difference, 92 per cent of urban households use clean energy sources for cooking. Here clean fuel refers to LPG, other natural gas, gobar gas, other biogas, electricity (including solar/ wind power generators) and solar cookers.
Experts say that higher costs of LPG are major hindrances against the scheme. The filling rate of the LPG cylinder has been low. However, last year Rameshwar Teli, Minister of State in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in Lok Sabha, informed Parliament that the per capita consumption of PMUY beneficiaries increased from 3.01 refills in 2019-20 to 3.68 in 2021-22.
Domestic emission is one of the major sources of pollution in the Indo-Gangetic plains, one of the most polluted regions of the planet. People are using firewood, chips and crop residue, kerosene, dung cake and other traditional sources of fuels for household cooking, which is the primary source of emissions of Particulate Matters (PM) 2.5 in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chandigarh and Delhi. “The unclean fuels contribute nearly 19 per cent of the total emissions in the region,” said Bhupender Yadav, Union minister for environment, forest and climate change, told the Lok Sabha.
The NSSO survey was scheduled for January-December 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey continued up until August 15, 2021. The report also says that 99 per cent of households lighting their house and 36.6 per cent of households heating their house are using a clean energy source.
Pollution unlimited in rural areas
People are using firewood, chips and crop residue, kerosene, dung cake and other traditional sources of fuels for household cooking, which is the primary source of emissions of Particulate Matters (PM) 2.5