Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive to provide every household with cooking gas cylinders to replace the wood and kerosene-run 'chullahs' has made India the second largest importer of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), according to a report by Bloomberg.
India surpassed Japan to take the second place while China remained the largest importer of LPG.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2016, launched a LPG 'Give it up' campaign urging the middle class and the rich to give up their subsidies on LPG cylinders. These could be then used by the government to allot subsidised LPG cylinders to households in the rural areas. Currently, most rural households use chullas which are made up of mud and fertiliser and are fired by wood and kerosene. The fumes of the chullas are harmful to the health of the women in the household tasked with cooking and also other family members as the houses are usually not well-ventilated.
According to the report, "Imports of LPG soared 23% during the financial year ended March 31 to 11 million tonnes, according to data from oil ministry's Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell. Japan's imports slipped 3.2% during the same period to 10.6 million tonnes, according to the finance ministry." China remained the top importer.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) report has been quoted by the Bloomberg report saying that 1.3 premature deaths take place in India every year because of polluting fuels like wood and dried cow dung. "This push led to a record distribution of 32.5 million new cooking gas connections during the year, it added.
