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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | NSSO: 73% of rural Bihar use kerosene for lighting -Mahendra K Singh

NSSO: 73% of rural Bihar use kerosene for lighting -Mahendra K Singh

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published Published on Aug 3, 2015   modified Modified on Aug 3, 2015
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: For all the subsidy flowing towards selling kerosene through the public distribution system, it now emerges that the fuel is hardly being used in kitchens across India - in towns as well as villages - but remains a key source for lighting lamps and lanterns in rural areas, which either lack power connections or don't get adequate supply.

The latest survey released by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) has revealed that in rural areas, subsidized kerosene was used in less than 1% of kitchens, which relied largely on firewood and chips as the primary source of energy for cooking during 2011-12. After firewood (67% share), cooking gas cylinders have emerged as the second most preferred kitchen fuel in rural areas, with a share of 15%. In urban areas, of course, they now fire over 68% of the stoves, while the share of kerosene is estimated at 5.7%, lower than firewood (14%).

But when it comes to lighting homes in villages, the share of kerosene is estimated at 26.5%, with electricity's share estimated at 72.7%. In urban India, 3.2% of households uses kerosene for lighting while the share of electricity is 96%.

The data points to what several economists have argued for years: there is reduced dependence on kerosene despite the government doling out subsidized fuel, which is suspected to be used in large quantities for adulteration or finds its way into the open market, where there is no subsidy.

Currently, the government pays Rs 18.51 as subsidy for every litre of kerosene sold through the public distribution system. The under-recovery on the sale of kitchen fuel by the oil marketing companies added up to Rs 24,800 crore during the last financial year, with the government taking over around Rs 5,000 crore of the burden and forcing the state-run companies to bear the additional burden.

The government has been talking of reforming the subsidy delivery mechanism for several years and is contemplating extending the direct benefit transfer scheme to kerosene to check leakages.

But the findings of the NSSO survey showed wide divergence in fuel used across states with those such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still relying on dung cake and firewood to a large extent.

The use of firewood and chips for cooking has declined but slowly over the years in rural India. It declined from 78.2% of all rural households in 1993-94 to 67.3% in 2011-12. LPG use in rural households has grown relatively fast, from fewer than 2% of rural households two decades ago to 15% in 2011-12.

Cow-dung cake remained one of the major fuels for cooking for rural households in Uttar Pradesh (33.4%) followed by Punjab (30.3%), Haryana (24%) and Bihar (20.8%).

Tamil Nadu had the highest use of LPG among rural households, with over a third using it for cooking, followed by Kerala and Punjab. The use of LPG was least in Chhattisgarh (1.5%) followed by Jharkhand (2.9%) and Odisha (3.9%).

When it comes to lighting, 73.5% of rural households in Bihar still use kerosene as primary source of energy for lighting, followed by Uttar Pradesh (58.5%) and Assam (36.8%).

Bihar also tops the chart when it comes to use of kerosene for lighting in urban areas with 17.2% of households still depending on kerosene. Followed by Bihar were Uttar Pradesh (10.8%), Assam (7.9%), Gujarat (5.2%) and West Bengal (5%).

However, over the past decade, the proportion of households using kerosene to light their houses has halved in rural India.

The use of electricity was the highest in rural Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where nearly all rural households used electricity to light their homes. In contrast, just 25.8% of rural Bihar and 40.4% of rural Uttar Pradesh households had electricity

The Times of India, 3 August, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/NSSO-73-of-rural-Bihar-use-kerosene-for-lighting/articleshow/48321836.cms


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