Household energy transition in rural India in the wake of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

Access to clean cooking fuels has a direct impact on several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including affordable energy, health, gender equality, and climate action. While urban households in India have mostly switched to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), rural households remained highly reliant on traditional fuels like firewood and dung cake until the previous decade. To address this, the government of India introduced the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in 2016 to increase LPG access among rural India’s impoverished households. Despite its ambitions, the scheme’s long-term viability and egalitarian reach have been questioned. This study uses data from the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO) 76th round on Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Housing Conditions to investigate the factors of household cooking energy use in rural India after PMUY. The results suggest that over 48 percent of rural households use LPG as their primary fuel; however, adoption among the lowest consumption quintile is only 29 per cent. Furthermore, Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC) households, two of the most disadvantaged communities in the country, are 14 percent and 7 percent less likely, respectively, than upper-caste households to use LPG as a primary fuel.