Rural energy a must for livelihood improvement

In India, where 70% of people live in rural areas, rural energy is all the more vital if our country is to keep its pace of development. 21% of our villages and about 50% of rural households are as yet not electrified.

There is also wide disparity in the per capita energy consumption between rural and urban areas. For eg, 75% of rural households depend on firewood for cooking, 10% on dung-cake and about 5% on LPG as against 22% of urban households depend on firewood for cooking, another 22% on kerosene and about 44% on LPG. Similarly for home lighting, while 50% of rural households depend on kerosene and another 48% on electricity, 89% of urban households depend on electricity and another 10% on kerosene.

Women spend upto four hours of their productive time of a day in fetching fuelwood and cooking. Children too are involved in collection of fuel wood.

Access to energy is an important prerequisite for a nation’s development.  Energy occupies the centre stage in almost all our daily activities – cooking, access to clean water, agriculture, education, transportation, employment generation and environmental sustainability.

About 80% of the rural energy used is derived from biomass. This puts heavy pressure on the already declining vegetation in villages. Use of inefficient chulhas often increases the drudgery of women and children who are involved in collection of fuel wood. Moreover, the smoke generated during indoor cooking from these chulhas affect the respiratory health of women and children to a great extent.

Increased energy conservation, improved energy efficiency and enhanced energy production from renewable sources can definitely lead India in general and rural areas in particular to become self sustainable communities.

The rural energy portal attempts to give information on the above aspects with inspiring stories that would motivate you to use them and derive the associated benefits.