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Monday, April 22, 2019

A draft post of Nov 2018 is still valid.. on the Ujwala scheme

Many studies have shown that sustainable use of bio-mass for domestic energy purposes (cooking, heating and light) is a very important part of finding energy solutions for our country's rural inhabitants, most of whom use biomass today but over earthern chulhas. Many urban poor use bio-mass as well. So such chulhas (apart from biogas generators) can play a big role in improving the health of the rural poor, vastly improving efficiency in use of the bio-mass (so much less is needed for the same cooking needs) and reduce the soot effect on monsoons and melting of glaciers.

These chulhas emit much less CO2 by increasing the efficiency of the burning of the biomass, thus helping with mitigating global warming. The BJP Govt. has distributed 4 million LPG cylinders and regulators at a cost of Rs. 1600 each but there are as many suspended connections in the country (LPG customers who do not order refill even once in 90 days), indicating that a majority of those who got these free connections are too poor to pay for refills. In contrast, only about 35000 improved chulhas have been distributed in the last 4 years !

LPG was always part of the rural energy solution, never the full solution, but the Govt. was not really focused on helping the rural poor in this context. It ignored a large study that the Govt. itself funded that had warned that the rural population by and large did not exhibit affordability for LPG refills, and that the oil companies did not have a robust distribution system in rural areas.

Right from the beginning the purpose of the scheme seemed to be free publicity for Modi at the expense of the oil companies who were forced to give the cook stoves and LPG filling also on interest free loans as the beneficiaries were too poor to pay for them.

A recent tender for billboards at petrol pumps and in front of airports (!) in just three states of india has been put out by indian oil for nearly 300 crores. Might not the expense on the publicity of modi having done good to the rural women in all states of india, then reach even a 1000 crores ?! In any case, in what way does advertising on petrol pumps and in front of airports help the rural poor access the LPG scheme ??! In contrast to the hundreds of crores spent on the personal publicity of one politician, the total cost of this programme all over the country is Rs. 8000 crores in all !

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