India’s Water Sanitation Progress Stalls on Clean Cooking

Though access to toilets and drinking water has gained enormously in India, clean cooking fuel adoption, however is one area of significant challenge, especially in the rural sector. The data from the total annual modular survey by National Statistical Office for July 2022 to June 2023 are all still trickling in, but all point to another significant gap that has continued across the states and regions in accessing clean energy.

Significant Progress in Access to Water and Sanitation
Results of the Survey As per the survey, an impressive 97.8% of Indian households have acquired access to toilet facility, and 95.7% of them have access to improved sources of drinking water. These are remarkable improvements compared with last decade, especially in the cases of Swachh Bharat Mission, among other varied water supply programs that aim to improve hygiene and health standards throughout the country.

Access to clean drinking water is relatively well-balanced in both urban and rural areas. About 97.5% of households in urban areas have access to improved water sources, whereas access for households in rural areas stands at 94.9%. These statistics indicate that government efforts do indeed succeed in expanding the accessibility of clean water even to these long-neglected areas, particularly rural regions.

Low Adoption of Clean Cooking Fuels Especially in Rural Areas
On the other hand, the report does expose the main shortfalls of the use of cleaner cooking fuels such as LPG, biogas, electricity, and solar cooking. Despite efforts on the part of the governments to promote cleaner and healthier means of preparation, cooking is still done on clean fuels in only 63.4% of Indian households. The gap between the cities and the countryside is stark: 92.9% of the former do cook on clean fuels compared with 49.5% of the latter.

The use of clean cooking fuels has been associated with lowering household air pollution, a major cause of respiratory diseases, especially in women and children in rural areas. Risk associated with traditional cooking fuels, such as firewood, coal, and cow dung, includes the production of unfavorable smoke and pollutants that pose adverse health risks and serious environmental damage.

State-Wise Inequalities in Access to Clean Fuel
It also presents strong regional imbalances in the embracing of clean cooking fuels. At the leadership end, there are states like Goa, Sikkim, and Telangana where the adoption rate of clean fuel stands at more than 97 percent. Goa tops the chart with 99.2 percent of its households having access to clean cooking fuel followed by Sikkim and Telangana with 97.2 percent and Karnataka at 92.5 percent.

On the other hand, many states are lagging far behind in embracing clean cooking fuels. During 2019-2020, Jharkhand had the lowest at 31.7%, followed by Chhattisgarh at 36.4%, Odisha at 36.8, and Rajasthan at 40.4%. These are the states where traditional cooking methodologies are extensively used and which are also enormously lagging in their transition to cleaner alternatives.

Government Steps for Clean Cooking Fuels
In this regard, in 2016, the Indian government launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) – a new flagship program targeting such households that use traditional fuels, such as firewood and coal, hazardous to health and the environment. Subsidies provided to poorer families have been important for augmenting access to clean fuels, particularly in rural areas.

Under the PMUY, currently, the government subsidizes ₹300 per 14.2-kg domestic LPG cylinder to PMUY beneficiaries. Recently, it has expanded the programme up to 2024-25, with data indicating that there are 103.3 million beneficiaries at the last count.

Despite all this, the poll finds that much remains to be done to make clean cooking fuels accessible and readily available in rural households. Many household challenges still lie in affording them and inadequacies of supply chains for the same, along with cultural preferences for traditional fuels, preventing wider adoption of cleaner alternatives.

Implication for Health and Environment
The persistence of traditional cooking fuels in large portions of India has devastating health as well as environmental implications. According to the World Health Organization, household air pollution attributed to burning solid fuels is one of the world’s biggest causes of respiratory diseases, which range from COPD to lung cancer. Smoking these fuels directly affects women and children who spend a longer period of time near cooking fires.

Besides health hazards, practice of traditional cooking methods contributes to losses in forests and more emission of greenhouse gases, enhancing environmental degradation and climate changes. Burning of firewood and other biomass fuels emits considerable levels of carbon dioxide and methane that are both potent greenhouse gases.

Survey Methodology and Insights
It is part of the 79th round of the National Sample Survey. It covered the Indian households across the board on various indicators of access to water and sanitation, energy use, birth registration, and access to transportation. The survey is different from administrative data sources. This will provide a demand-side perspective directly reflecting on households’ experience and choices rather than supplying side metrics reported by government agencies.

One key learning from the survey is that much more work needs to be undertaken in improving access to clean cooking fuels in rural areas and in states that lag behind others.

Unless significant progress can be made in accessing clean fuel, the health and environmental costs of relying on unclean fuels will continue to mount for millions of households across India.

Moving Forward
While there are continued efforts by the government through initiatives like PMUY and other clean energy programs, the key problems require more focused intervention to overcome the difficulties faced by rural households. Affordability of products, assured supply, and spreads of health benefits through the use of the cleaner fuel sources are some of the necessary steps toward faster adoption.

Significant government effort and action in access to toilets and clean drinking water signify that change is doable across the board. The same level of progress in clean cooking fuel use, however, would entail a more pervasive kind of strategy that addresses economic and cultural barriers, as well as practical constraints-the most of which is expected in rural areas and less developed states.

Source: National Statistical Office, Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey (July 2022 – June 2023)

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