Income Levels and Transition of Cooking Fuel Among Rural Poor in India

More than two-thirds of the population lives in rural India. Even after six decades of independence and two decades of economic liberalization, it remains the bitter truth. This study assumes greater significance, because, majority of the rural people are still dependent on biomass fuel for cooking. A reduction in this could help India in greatly reducing the indoor as well as environmental pollution levels; thus helping in containing global warming. It would also help in controlling the health hazards caused due to the indoor pollution in the rural economy; which in effect would help the government in reducing the spending on public health. To make this happen, the government should make the distribution system of kerosene and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), efficient. This study could be useful not only to India, but to many other economies that are on the threshold of transition; where majority of the population, still lives in the rural areas, and are predominantly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. This study was undertaken with the objective of analyzing the socio-economic conditions of rural poor in India with respect to their primary energy consumption viz. cooking fuel and impact on health. The study conducts a questionnaire based survey on demographic, economic, and perceptible parameters on modern fuel such as kerosene and LPG; using logit model to identifying variables useful for the study.