Rural Resource Management for Sustainability of Fuel

In rural India, fuel wood, cowdung and crop waste are used as kitchen fuel. These fuels have low heat output per unit of fuel used and releases lot of gases harmful for human health. In earlier days, the people were using the charcoal obtained from partial burnt wood at the end of routine cooking practices. Practice also existed to turn the powdery coal into balls for use as fuel in some parts of the country.At the same time, people were using the hard stalk/straw etc. as such to build a fire for cooking and heating bio-fuel accounts for 80% of their kitchen energy needs. In rural areas, one expert opinion suggests sufficient food in the forthcoming years but insufficient fuel to cook the food, as the rate of deforestation is very high in comparison to the forestation. Rural population living in the villages is unable to shift to commercial fuel due to their low purchasing power and limited availability of commercial fuels. Urban poor (25–30% urban populations) are also heavily dependent on bio fuel due to short supply of commercial fuel like kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas.