Jointly modeling the adoption and use of clean cooking fuels in rural India

Abstract

Solid fuel combustion is a major cause of household air pollution, a leading environmental health risk factor globally. In India, over 750 million people continue to rely on firewood and other solid fuels for daily cooking. We explore the drivers of adoption and use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), India’s dominant clean cooking fuel. We document strides in LPG ownership using a panel dataset of over 8,500 rural households from six Indian states surveyed in 2015 and 2018 (ACCESS), partially due to India’s flagship clean cooking policy Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). We further demonstrate that the drivers of initial LPG adoption also apply to use. While fuel stacking—using solid fuels and LPG jointly—is pervasive, improved rural incomes and education result in the increased use of clean cooking fuels. After adoption, general LPG customers are predicted to consume on average 93 kilograms of LPG yearly (95% confidence interval (CI): 91–95 kg/year). However, PMUY beneficiaries are predicted to consume 27 kilograms of LPG (95% CI: 24–30 kg/year) less on average than general customers each year, even after controlling for socio-economic differences and years of using LPG. Our findings suggest that additional strategies to accelerate the transition to exclusive LPG use among the 80 million households acquiring LPG through PMUY should aim to improve affordability and increase awareness to realize the full benefits of the Government of India’s investments in cleaner cooking.

Beyond Household Socioeconomic Status: Multilevel Modeling of Supply-Side Determinants of LPG Consumption among 5,500 Households in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…24,37 A study among 8,000 PMUY program bene ciaries proposed that long travel times from rural Indian villages to re ll points was a likely driver of 30% lower LPG consumption. 25 While this study proposed that fuel access is important at a village-level, we nd that accessibility may play a role at smaller scales in an African context; a 10-minute longer travel time to a retailer within a community may be a deterrent to LPG usage ( Figure 5). Indeed, a low intraclass correlation coe cient (0.01) in the consumption model emphasizes that LPG consumption was predominantly in uenced at a household-level (Table S3).…”

“…Younger households and smaller families were more likely to primarily use LPG and had higher consumption rates ( Figure 5), similar to ndings from a study of PMUY bene ciaries in India. 25 Moreover, using multi-burner LPG stoves greatly increased the probability of households with 5 members or greater primarily using LPG (Figure 3), likely because multi-burner stoves offer greater time and fuel savings to larger families. Using a double-burner stove was associated with substantially higher LPG consumption (21.92 kg/capita/yr (95%CI: 17.84,26.93)) compared with use of a single-burner stove (14.09 kg/capita/yr (95%CI: 11.53,17.21)).…”

“…[21][22][23] Studies in India found that rural households provided with subsidies for LPG connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) programme continued to use polluting fuels alongside LPG ('stove stacking'), leading to less frequent LPG use compared with urban households. 24,25 Reduced LPG uptake likely resulted from poorer supply and access points in rural Indian villages. While studies conducted in Cameroon, 26,27 Tanzania 28 and Ethiopia 29 have also found supply-related issues to be important determinants of cooking fuel decisions, few large-scale studies in SSA have quantitatively assessed their effect on LPG consumption.…”

PM2.5 exposures increased for the majority of Indians and a third of the global population during COVID-19 lockdowns: a residential biomass burning and environmental justice perspective

“…The primary fuel type usage rates for each states' urban and rural populations was retrieved from India's Time Use Survey 2019 data (SI table 2). Fuel stacking, using a secondary fuel in addition to a primary fuel, is a common [17,18], yet mostly unquantified practice nationwide. We utilize microdata from India's Residential Energy Survey (2020) [19] and household expenditure survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (2014) [20] to quantify the frequency at which primary LPG-households use biomass as a secondary fuel (SI table 3).…”

“…The 158 monitored activities were grouped as household (kitchen or living area), outdoor, or at work/school to align with microenvironments where PM 2.5 concentration estimates were available. Recall surveys have well-documented limitations associated with recall bias, particularly when assessing microenvironment exposures from solid-fuel use [18,28]. Here, we do not directly quantify uncertainties with individual responses, but rather incorporate the distribution of responses from each state's subpopulation groups (e.g.…”