Authors: Ms. N. Jeny
Abstract: Access to clean cooking fuels is fundamental to public health, gender equality and sustainable development. This study comprehensively analyzes India's transition toward clean cooking fuels from 2000 to 2025 examining total, rural and urban access trends using secondary data from the World Health Organization's Global Household Energy Database. Employing statistical tools including percentage change analysis, compound annual growth rate (CAGR), linear trend estimation and forecasting. The study reveals remarkable progress. Total clean cooking access increased from 22.7% in 2000 to 76.7% in 2023 while rural access surged from 6.6% to 65.7% representing a nearly tenfold increase. Despite this progress a persistent urban rural gap of 29.5 percentage points remains. The study identifies the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) as a transformative policy intervention that accelerated rural adoption though challenges of sustained consumption, fuel stacking and affordability persist. Projections indicate that under current trends approximately 92% of rural households may achieve access by 2030 falling short of universal coverage. The study recommends a diversified clean cooking strategy incorporating electric cooking, enhanced subsidy mechanisms, behavioral change communication and infrastructure development. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners working toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7.1.2 in India and similar developing contexts.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22300685
