Central Data Catalog

Smoke from cooking with biomass fuels kills approximately four lakh people each year in India. PMUY took the first step towards universal clean cooking by enabling LPG connections. But avoiding these deaths also requires that these households stop using indoor chulhas. Thus, the next phase of the program should now focus on ending chulha use and transitioning to near-exclusive LPG use.

In our research, people generally like LPG stoves. They appreciate it as a modern appliance that cooks more quickly. However, most poor households with a new LPG stove continue to use chulhas. Most people are unaware of the serious health effects of chulhas and habits are difficult to change. Importantly, people have no choice but to use chulha when they run out of LPG. Many rural households typically require a day or more to book new cylinder and up to a week for the distributor to deliver it.

We recently conducted a few small studies of different strategies for encouraging clean fuel use. All of the studies were in a remote, tribal region of Pune district. One strategy we employed to shift households away from indoor chulha use worked surprisingly well. We selected 60 households who already had a single cylinder LPG connection and provided them with health messages on the health effects of chulha use. We offered these households a four-month free trial of a second cylinder. To participate, the household had to disable the chulha – that is, fill it in, destroy it, or move it outdoors. After the trial period, 84% purchased a second cylinder in order to keep using it. None rebuilt their indoor chulha.

This success follows a prior study that provided a more generous LPG package (including a free stove and a second cylinder on loan) targeted to pregnant women. We targeted pregnant women because they are a particularly vulnerable group, because they benefit the most from clean indoor air, and because they already receive government benefits if they attend antenatal care checkups and deliver in a facility. In one arm of this study, we provided an additional benefit during pregnancy – one cylinder per month of free fuel until delivery. Women in this arm switched almost exclusively to LPG use, with chulha use on only 10% of measured days.

That study included several other arms that received health messages, a free stove, a free cylinder, and a loan of second cylinder. We also advised (but did not require) disabling the indoor chulha. Nevertheless, the majority of households did so. Finally, we also offered to sell participants the second cylinder we loaned them; the majority choose to purchase it.