A worker unloads LPG cylinders from a truck.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The story so far: Data from the 2014-2015 ACCESS survey, conducted by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, found LPG’s cost to be the foremost barrier to its adoption and continued use in rural poor households. Thus, 750 million Indians primarily use solid cooking fuels — wood, dung, agricultural residues, coal, and charcoal — every day. Solid cooking fuels are associated with innumerable health hazards and socio-economic and environmental impacts.

Has the govt. pushed LPG use?

The Indian government has often placed a premium on the cooking fuels in rural households transitioning to LPG. The Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG Vitrak scheme was launched in 2009 to increase LPG distribution in remote areas; nearly 45 million new LPG connections were thus established between 2010 and 2013. Direct benefit transfers for LPG under the ‘PAHAL’ scheme were initiated in 2015. In 2016, direct home-refill deliveries were implemented and the ‘Give it Up’ program enrolled around 10 million LPG consumers to voluntarily discontinue subsidies and transfer their accounts to below-poverty-line households. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) followed, to install LPG connections in 80 million below-poverty-line households by 2020. The scheme also provides a subsidy of ₹200 for every 14.2-kg cylinder, which increased to ₹300 in October 2023.

Fast forward to 2022: of the 54 countries whose LPG prices were available, those in India were reportedly the highest, around ₹300/litre.

In 2023, a study done by the author and Amir Kumar Chhetri showed how local communities of the Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal depend on the forests for fuelwood. The landscape has highly degraded forest remnants in a mosaic of tea estates, human settlements, and agricultural land, thanks to a history of forest conversion and fragmentation.

Based on 40 focal group discussions in tea-estate labour colonies and in forest and revenue villages, the study found that residents in the area depend mainly on forests for fuelwood, for both household consumption and to sell. Roughly half of the 214 local shops in 10 markets used fuelwood; the shop-workers reported the cost of a commercial cylinder, ₹1,900, to be exorbitant. Around 38.5% of Jalpaiguri’s population is below the poverty line and most of them work in tea estates with a daily wage of ₹250. Against this backdrop, the persistent use of fuelwood as cooking fuel is unsurprising.

What are suitable alternatives?

While the act of collecting fuelwood gives the people cooking fuel, it also degrades the forest and forces people to risk adverse encounters with wild animals. Due to various government schemes, most households in Jalpaiguri have LPG connections but few refill the cylinder even twice a year. On introduction of the PMUY scheme, many households quickly switched to LPG from fuelwood, and reported that their cooking activities became fast and smokeless, they could forgo the need to rise early and the time and effort spent in collecting fuelwood. But the hike in the price of LPG rendered these advantages short-lived.

Devising locally acceptable, suitable, and sustainable alternatives to fuelwood is important to secure the forests, wildlife and locals’ livelihoods. Work is ongoing with the West Bengal Forest Department and Joint Forest Management Committees to help four villages acquire saplings of high fuelwood value on the conditions that they will be native species, prohibited from logging, unpalatable to elephants and will be maintained by locals. Alternatives like efficient cooking stoves, optimised shade tree density in tea plantations, and multi-stakeholder meetings for resource governance are also in the works.

What next?

Our findings suggest that the LPG price rise, especially over the last decade, could cause socio-ecological crises in places where there are no viable alternatives to fuelwood and socio-economic deprivation is common. Future governments must focus on making, and keeping, LPG affordable. At the same time, they also need to endeavour to free solid cooking fuels from socio-ecological endangerment, like, say, with a national policy on introducing smokeless cooking stoves that consume less fuelwood.

Priyanka Das is a fellow at the Coexistence Consortium.

New Delhi:

Jet fuel or ATF price on Sunday was hiked by 5 per cent — the fourth straight monthly increase since July, and commercial cooking gas (LPG) rates were raised by a steep Rs 209 per 19-kg cylinder, in line with the firming up seen in international benchmarks.

However, the price of domestic LPG – the one used in household kitchens for cooking purposes – remained unchanged at Rs 903 per 14.2-kg cylinder.

Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was increased by Rs 5,779.84 per kilolitre, or 5.1 per cent, in the national capital to Rs 118,199.17 per kl from Rs 112,419.33, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.

The increase comes on back of the steepest-ever 14.1 per cent increase (Rs 13,911.07 per kl) effected on September 1, and a 8.5 per cent or Rs 7,728.38 per kl increase on August 1.

The fourth straight increase in prices of jet fuel, which makes up for 40 per cent of an airline’s operating cost, will increase the burden on already financially strained airlines.

On July 1, ATF price had gone up by 1.65 per cent or Rs 1,476.79 per kl. In four increases, ATF prices have gone up by a record Rs 29,391.08 per kl.

Alongside, oil firms raised the price of commercial LPG – the one used in establishments such as hotels and restaurants – by Rs 209.

A 19-kg commercial LPG cylinder will now cost Rs 1,731.50 in the national capital and Rs 1,684 in Mumbai.

The increase reserves most of the Rs 157.5 per cylinder cut in commercial LPG price effected on September 1 and Rs 100 cut effected from August 1.

Saudi contract price (CP), the benchmark used for pricing of LPG, has increased following a firming up trend in crude oil prices witnessed in last few weeks over supply concerns.

Oil companies, which had on August 30, cut domestic LPG rates by Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinder, did not change the price of 14.2-kg cylinders.

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) revise cooking gas and ATF prices on the 1st of every month based on the average international price in the previous month.

Petrol and diesel prices continued to remain on freeze for a record 18th month in a row. Petrol costs Rs 96.72 per litre in the national capital and diesel comes for Rs 89.62 per litre.

State-owned fuel retailers are supposed to revise petrol and diesel prices daily, based on a 15-day rolling average of benchmark international fuel prices, but they haven’t done that since April 6, 2022.

Prices were last changed on May 22, when the government cut excise duty to give relief to consumers from a spike in retail rates that followed a surge in international oil prices.

File picture of workers loading LPG cylinders on to a truck.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Public sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have slashed the price of 19 kg commercial LPG gas cylinders by ₹158, according to the sources. The new prices will be effective from today. In Delhi, the retail price of the 19 kg commercial LPG cylinder will be ₹1,522. 

On August 29, the price of domestic LPG was reduced by ₹200 by the Centre, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed a “Raksha Bandhan gift” to the sisters of the country. Monthly revisions for both commercial and domestic LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinders occur on the first day of each month, with the new rates becoming effective from September 1.

Earlier in August, the prices of commercial LPG cylinders were slashed by ₹99.75 by the OMCs. In July, the prices of commercial LPG gas cylinders were increased by ₹7 each.

Before this hike, there had been two consecutive price cuts for commercial LPG cylinders in May and June. While in May OMCs reduced the price of a commercial LPG cylinder by ₹172, in June it was reduced by ₹83.

In April, too, their prices were reduced by ₹91.50 per unit.

Petroleum and oil marketing companies had on March 1 this year hiked the prices of commercial LPG cylinders by ₹350.50 per unit and domestic LPG cylinders by ₹50 per unit.