ANNOUNCEMENTS
Transition to improved cookstoves from firewood based traditional cooking options are often not a linear choice decision in India. By linear, it is meant that a rise in income will not necessarily translate into a shift of choice from TCS to ICS. This can be subtly hinted in various programmes like National Improved Cookstoves Programme dealing with this transition in cooking choices for rural households of India. The National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative attempted to make amends to the failings of its predecessor by adopting a market-driven mode of dissemination and rigorous testing of cookstove technologies. With this background context, this thesis, explores the nature of rural energy transition from firewood to improved cookstoves in the State of Bihar. The thesis explores through the possible determining factors of such a transition at a national and subnational level through an econometric and indicator based analysis.
Hence the key objectives of the thesis have been –
â— To explore the determinants of rural energy transition process in India in cooking practices from TCS (traditional cookstoves) to ICS (improved cookstoves) at national, state, district and household level
â— To explore the determinants in rural energy transition process in cooking practices from TCS to ICS at a district, village level in Bihar
In order to address these objectives, the thesis conducts a meta data based systematic literature review at an international and national level, followed by a quantitative macroeconometric modelling at a national and state level. This is followed by an empirical spatial chaos analysis of firewood consumption at a state level viz. for the State of Bihar. This leads to an exploration of the possible determining factors that guide and can possibly explain the nature of a nonlinear transition from firewood to improved cookstoves at a village level in the state of Bihar. The thesis indicates that firewood consumption in villages of Bihar follows a spatial chaos pattern over the time frame of 1981 – 2011. It further highlights that the process, probability of rural energy transition from firewood to other cooking options are determined by local contextualised factors of social group belonging, access to infrastructure, technology, caste, trust levels within different social layers of a village society.
Findings of the analysis leads to policy directions that can be internalized and considered for the clean energy access programmes of India like the Ujjwala Programme.
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