A Critical Analysis on Access and Affordability of Clean Cooking Fuel in India

Abstract

Improving the access to affordable and reliable energy services for cooking is essential and very important for developing countries in reducing adverse human health and environmental impacts which are caused by burning of traditional biomass. In low-income households, perceived health benefits of adopting improved stoves and financial benefits from fuel savings, tend to be outweighed by the costs of improved stoves and increased rates of fuels, even after accounting for the opportunity and cost of time spent collecting biomass fuel. This paper reviews empirical study and analyze the choices of fuel, adoption of improved stoves for cooking in countries where biomass is still the predominant cooking fuel and awareness. It also summarizes the evidence on the significant adverse health impacts from exposure to indoor smoke, especially among women and young children. The review highlights the wide range of factors that influence households cooking fuel choices and adoption of improved stoves, including socioeconomic i.e. access and availability, collection costs and fuel prices, household income, education and awareness, behavioral i.e. food tastes, lifestyle and cultural and external factors both indoor air pollution, government policies. The paper identifies knowledge and evidence gaps on the success of policies and programs designed to scale up the adoption of improved cook stoves, government policies and awareness among general public.