Recalibrating India’s clean-cooking strategy

Rationale behind introduction of PMUY scheme:

1. LPG connections are concentrated in Urban and Semi-urban areas mostly to middle class and upper middle-class households.
2. Low-income households depend on use of fossil fuels such as Kerosene, coal and wood for regular cooking usage.
3. The burning of fossil fuels in a closed or partially closed environments can cause acute respiratory illnesses, pulmonary and lung diseases and WHO reports ~5 lakh deaths associated due to use of unclean cooking fuels.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY):

1. Introduced in 2016, a social-welfare scheme with a vision of smoke-free rural India.
2. The scheme intends to provide concessional LPG connections to the whole country by 2019.
3. Intends to increase LPG usage to low-income and Below Poverty Line (BPL) households and reduce air pollution, deforestation and health disorders among citizens.
4. Protect the health of women & children by providing clean cooking fuel and reducing their dependency on conventional cooking fuels which will lower indoor smoke pollution and the risk of related diseases.
5. Intended beneficiaries:
   1. Recipients registered in the SECC-2011 list
   2. All SC/ST household beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) (Gramin)
   3. Beneficiaries of the Antodhaya Anna Yojana (AAY)
   4. Forest dwellers
   5. Women belonging to the most backward classes (MBC)
   6. Tribal women working or who have previously worked in tea gardens
   7. People residing in islands and river islands.
6. The PMUY has
   1. Increased the rural distributor base from 18% to 60% of the total LPG distributor base in the country.
   2. LPG as primary cooking fuel has increased from 32% in 2011 to 71% in 2020.

Recent issues in implementation of PMUY:

1. The issue of home-delivery and distribution channels of cylinders persists.
2. Increase in LPG prices due to Russia-Ukraine war and dependent LPG imports and a budget dependent on petroleum taxation, it has decreased the refill of cylinders from 4 per year to two or less in the current year.
3. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing loss of livelihoods and income has pushed rural consumers to usage of LPG cylinders.
   • Of the 24 crore cylinders available, only 14.1 crore cylinders were actually consumer in FY21.

                A need to relook the clean cooking strategy by shifting from LPG only strategy needs a shift. With ~100% access to electricity connections in the rural areas, e-cooking using induction cook-tops would be a cheaper and an effective alternative as a clean cooking fuel.