Rural Household Cooking Fuel Choices: A Multidimensional Approach

Abstract

The multidimensional nature of poverty seeps into all other aspects of human development of which one is access to clean energy. Literature highlights the high correlation between human development and unequal access to energy. 1 The term “fuel poverty” is of importance here especially in a developing country context like India where access to clean fuel is a far sight for many despite key governmental initiatives promoting and subsidising access to clean fuel. The present article examines the impact of poverty on the likelihood of a household to shift to clean fuel for cooking, heating, etc. The present article shows that the usual method of estimating poverty is not sufficient enough to explain behavioural change among rural households. In fact, the simple provision of subsidy cannot ensure the complete shift of households to clean cooking fuel option. For this, a multidimensional poverty index concept is more appropriate. The article shows that multidimensional poverty act as a binding constraint in the shift of household from polluting cooking fuel to clean fuel option.