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42% still use firewood for cooking: survey

Last Updated 22 June 2016, 18:59 IST

Indian kitchens are turning more and more towards LPG and PNG for preparing food, but firewood continues to remain the main fuel for cooking in the country.

However, the gap between households using firewood as cooking fuel with those having LPG/PNG connections is decreasing.

According to the Sample Registration System Baseline Survey conducted in 2014 by Registrar General of India, 42.7% of the households in India still use firewoods as the fuel mainly used for cooking.

LPG/PNG follows with 38.1%, while cow dung cake is used as fuel in 9.4% households and crop residue 5.9%. Kerosene, electricity, coal, charcoal and biogas have negligible presence in the kitchens of India.

This would mean that more than half of the country’s households use fuel sources that could affect the environment.


Over a period of time, the government is making efforts to make the kitchens use environmentally viable fuel solutions. Delhi tops the list of users of LPG/PNG with 97% of its households using gas cylinders followed by Telangana (75.9%) and Tamil Nadu (70.3%).

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Punjab also have impressive LPG coverage in 57% households. Bihar, which has the least LPG coverage with only 8.5% households having gas connections, might be adding to the woes of environment as around 90% of its cooking fuel comes from cow dung cake, crop residue and firewood. The state has the highest percentage of households 41.2% using cow dung cake as the fuel for cooking.

Uttar Pradesh, which has 23.1% coverage of gas connections, comes second at 27.1% in the use of cow dung cake as the cooking fuel.

Among the southern states, Kerala has the highest percentage of households using firewood in kitchens followed by Karnataka (49.4%) and Andhra Pradesh (40.2%).

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(Published 22 June 2016, 18:59 IST)

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