The Gendered Politics of Fuel in India

Abstract

Indian energy planning is still driven by the traditional supply-oriented mentality emphasizing the development of power, coal and hydrocarbons, without adequate regard to specific end-uses that determine the demand as well as the social and environment costs of providing these services. Despite the increase in the quantum of energy supplied, a vast section of the population has not benefitted, particularly as far as energy for cooking is concerned.

This paper, while focusing on the rural sector, also examines the kind of interventions that have been made thus far ostensibly to address the issue of domestic energy. In the first place, what comes out quite starkly is that resources going into the Biogas Program and the Improved Chulha (cookstove) Program, the two most important programs directly aimed at the rural poor and women in particular, have been declining quite sharply. Second, the indicators chosen to monitor performance are defined in terms of number of plants installed and/or facilities provided, with no consideration for the quality of the construction and/or its periodic maintenance and repair. Third, and more important, even the limited evaluations of these programs immediately show up the hiatus between official perception of a functioning plant and women’s perceptions of a functioning but not very useful plant.