Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

Rural: Energy, Poverty and Gender
Year Completed/ Status/Capacity	Funding Organization	Project Name
2007 Project Leader	Small Grants Project Global	Long term Sustainability of Biomass based Energy System in Gujrat
2006-07 Team Leader	Ministry of Power, Govt of India.	Evaluation of Franchisees System in the state of Assam, West Bengal and Nagaland
2006 Convenor	ENERGIA International	ENERGIA Asia Naional Focal Points Meeting
2006-07 Team Leader	Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (WISIONS)	Rural Micro-Enterprise Model for Bio-fuel Extraction in India at Bawal, Haryana
2006-07 Team Leader	Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Govt. of India.	Test Project on Village Energy Security at Vaddithar Gujarat.
2004-05 Team Leader	Department for International Development DIFD (UK), Engineering Knowledge and Research	The Energy Poverty and Gender Nexus in Himachal Pradesh, India: The Impact of Clean Fuel Access Policy on Women's Empowerment
2003-04 Team Leader	South Asia Network of Economic Research Institutes (SANEI)/ Global Development Network	Impact of fuel Scarcity and Pollution on Rural Poor, a Comparative analysis on vulnerable groups in Himachal Pradesh

Rural Energy, Pollution and Health Linkages

Principal Coordinator:	Prof. Jyoti Parikh
Co-investigators:	Prof. Kirit Parikh Dr. Vijay Laxmi
In cooperation with:	A.C. Nielsen Sri Ramachandra Medical College, Chennai. Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, Lucknow.

This study involves perhaps the largest integrated survey on the subject that covered more than 15,000 households in 4 states of India, with several funding sources Viz., UNDP, EMCaB project of the World Bank and co-ordinated by the Ministry of environment and forests. This study involved recording of Peak Expiratory Flow for more than 30,000 individuals and health profile of more than 80,000 individuals from 103 villages and 22 districts. The monitoring of indoor air quality is being performed in approximately 700 households. The study was designed such that socio-economic conditions are at the center of a triangle covering health, pollution measurements and energy consumption. Thus, closing it from all sides to establish more convincing linkages (For brief over view of the project please see slides (powerpoint presentation)

Sample Size

Sample/State	Tamil Nadu	Rajasthan	Himachal Pradesh	Uttar Pradesh	Total
Districts	4	3	9	6	22
Villages	30	13	54	51	148
Households	5028	1989	712	7564	15293
Individuals	22251	11955	4100	42713	81019
No. of Health Centres	9	4	2	36	51
No. of Lung Function Records	12000	3308	1508	14115	31003

Scope

Analysing fuel use patterns:

Quantity and use of different types of fuels
Sources of procurement of different type of fuels
Time and effort involved in procuring the fuel

Measuring air pollution with personalised and other monitors:

SPM, SO2, NOx, CO – only in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh (Instruments used)

Measuring health impact by

Personal interviews for respiratory and eye symptoms

Doctors visits to symptomatic and some non-symptomatic cases
Measuring lung functions with Peak Expiratory Flow Meter

Ascertaining housing characteristics

Kuchha (made of local materials such as wood, thatch, mud, etc.) vs.pucca (made of cement, iron, bricks, etc.)
Ventilation, windows etc.
Location of kitchen

Inside living room
Separate kitchen - inside the house.
Separate kitchen - outside the house.
No kitchen - open air cooking

Recording Socio-economics characteristics

Age, literacy
Occupation, Income
Access to clean fuels
Access to different infrastructure
Assets and consumer durables

Indentifying Stakeholders Environmental priorities
stakeholders preferences

Willingness to pay for clean fuels
Measures to reduce smoke
Overall environmental priorities.

To establish health and pollution linkage convincingly we need to monitor indoor air pollution and measure exposure to people residing in the same household. Therefore, with this purpose a subset of 500 households each selected randomly from the total sample of 5028 and 7,564 households respectively in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. In these houses monitoring of indoor air and personal exposure assessment were carried out along with physician’s checkup.

Guided by Committe and Workshops

Technical Advisory Committee to represent in each area viz., indoor air pollution, health and interventions.
National Advisory Committee chaired by Dr. Ramalingaswamy (Former Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research) responsible to review the results and give policy advice.
Task Force Committee to review the on going work.
Several workshops and seminars held at every stage.

Main findings of this study

The project has generated a hugh database analysis of which is gradually taking place. One set of results are given below and as and when more insights are obtained, the site will be updated.

Energy

Large percentage of cooking energy comes from biofuels. However, the distances have reduced and share of purchasing has increased.
There is willingness to pay for clean fuels. Non-affordability and non-availability hinder the use of clean fuels.

Air Pollution

In Tamilnadu (TN), the 24-hr mean exposure to respirable particulates, of the chief cook is between 201± 48 µg/m³ for households using biofuels. This is far below the levels quoted in the literature of 1500 for Northern India.
However, North-South difference in India (viz., Tamilnadu vs Uttar Pradesh) are very pronounced due to differences in fuel types, type of food (rice vs. chappati), types of kitchen and other cultured (women's status) and social characteristics (literacy).
The mean exposure in TN is less than in some of the highly polluted urban areas, but more than in the rural outdoors and small towns.
There is a higher preference for ventilation than improved stoves to reduce kitchen smoke.

Health

Smoking has much stronger impact than biofuel smoke due to process of direct inhaling.
Non-smoker males also suffer from respiratory diseases. This may be due to the dusty farms as well as exposure at home
Biofuel use per se was not as significant explanatory variable for respiratory symptoms as the fuel index, which consists of type and number of years of involvement (chief cook, helper or none). Fuel index also captures the biofuels years along with type of involvement..
Even when biofuels are used, it is the housing characteristics that determine the health impacts.

Housing characteristics such as kachha (mud), pucca, ventilation and location of the kitchen are statistically significant for health impacts.

Request for contribution in Energia News Vol. 4.3, June 2001.

Meetings and Seminars held for the project

First Technical Advisory Committee Meeting	March 1999
First Advisory Committee Meeting	May 1999
Second Advisory Committee Meeting	August 1999
Training workshop for interviews	September 1999
Results Review meeting	December 1999
Training workshop	February 2000
Training workshop	April 2000
Project Review Workshop of EMCAB	March 2000
Result Review meeting on Rural Pollution	October 2000
Thematic Seminar on Biofuels, Pollution and Health Linkages	January 2001
Dialogue with Petroleum Ministry	September 2001
Presentations of results at
Harvard University	November 2001
Oxford Institute of Health Economics	April 2001
Yale University	May 2002

National Advisory Committee

Ramalingaswamy, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
Kirit Parikh, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
Jyoti Parikh, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research
J. N. Pande, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
M. S. Ramchandran, Indian Oil Corporation
U. K. Choudhary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India

Technical Advisory Committee

K. C. Khandelwal, Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Govt. of India
Sudha Gangal, B J Wadia Hospital
T. K. Roy, International Institute of Population Scineces
A. A. Mahashur, Hinduja Hospital
R. S. Patil, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
U. C. Mishra, Formerly at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

Task Force

Jyoti Parikh, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.
J.N. Pande, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
S.K. Chhabra, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, New Delhi.
M.M. Dutta, World Health Organization, New Delhi.

Publications

“Linkages among Energy, Agriculture and Environment in Rural India”, Jyoti K. Parikh and R. Ramanathan, Energy Economics, Vol.21, No.6, pp.561-585, 1998.
Indoor Air Pollution: A Reflection on Gender Bias, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXIV, No. 9, February 27, 1999.
Biofuels, Pollution and Health Linkages A Survey of Rural Tamil Nadu, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXV, No.47, November 18, 2000.
Exposure to Air Pollutants from Combustion of Cooking Fuels: A Case Study of Rural Tamil Nadu, Forthcoming in Energy.
Rural Energy and Health Impacts, Report prepared for Ministry of Environment and Forsts, IGIDR-PP No.48, 2000.
Cooking Fuel Market's been on Low Heat for Too Long, Jyoti Parikh, Economic Times, December 23, 2000.
Gender and Health Considerations for Petroleum Product Policy in India, Energia Newsletter Vol. 3.2. p.11-13. June, 2000.( Please see page 11 of the Newsletter and page 3/8 in the PDF file.)
Mainstreaming Gender and Eenrgy in South Asia, Energia, International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, Regional paper prepared for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, August 2002

Please leave your name and address, in case you wish to have more information on forthcoming papers.

Acknowledgements:

We wish to thank Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to support the study “Rural Energy, Pollution and Health Linkages”. The study started with a pilot survey in 3 states viz., Maharastra, West Bangal, and North Eastern Region in 1997. We are grateful to Mr. Ujjawal Chowdhary, MOEF, and Dr. Pradeep Monga, UNDP to support us for undertaking this study at a large scale. In 1999 with the support from MOEF and UNDP, we started a comprehensive study involving air pollution monitoring and measurement, health measurement and direct physical measurement in Tamil Nadu. We also thank Dr. Dilip Mavalankar, IIM Ahemdabad, Dr. Jagdish Parikh, NIOH, Ahemdabad, Dr. Ram Linga Swami and World Bank team e.g., Carter Brandon, Sameer Akbar, Maureen L. Cropper, Meghan Dunleavy and others, for their constructive suggestions.

We are again grateful to MOEF and UNDP to further support a study on Rural Energy in 4 states of India in 2000.