Rural India still depends on firewood, chips, not electricity

New Delhi, Apr 30 (UNI) Notwithstanding the loud talk of modernisation and high growth, rural India continues to depend on firewood and chips as the most important source of energy used for cooking, with 75 per cent of these households still dependent on it, an official survey released here today shows.

The lower Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE) classes in rural India used more firewood, chips and dung cake as the dominant source for cooking in all rural households.

The all India survey on 'Energy Sources of Indian Households for Cooking 2004-05' is based on the seventh quinquennial survey on Household Expenditure carried out in the NSS 61st round by the NSSO.

This is one of the reports in the series of seven reports to be brought out by the NSSO on the basis of the nationwide survey.

Like all regular NSSO surveys, the present survey covered practically the whole of the Indian Union.

In urban India, kerosene (10 per cent), firewood and chips (22 per cent), and LPG (57 per cent) are the important sources of energy used for cooking and there has been an increase of about 13 percentage points in the use of LPG and a decrease of 12 percentage points in the use of kerosene for cooking.

Electricity and kerosene together served 99 per cent of the households as primary source for lighting in both rural and urban India.

In both rural and urban sectors of India, the average MPCE was relatively low among kerosene-users and relatively high among electricity-users.

Among the urban households, the percentage of households using electricity for lighting was the highest for regular wage earning households and the lowest for casual households.

Across social groups in both rural and urban areas, kerosene was used most by scheduled tribe households, followed by scheduled castes, and then by other backward classes.

UNI