The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
India spends big to provide cleaner fuel
Program seeks to save lives of extremely poor.
Kamleshkunwar, a mother of three living in a central Indian village, first used cooking gas to prepare a meal about a month ago. For years, her family struggled with the ash and smoke that comes from burning wood, until they received a free gas connection from the government as it tries to change how India’s poor cook.
Since May, state-owned oil marketing companies have distributed 1.8 million liquefied petroleum gas connections under a new program targeting the extremely poor, according to official estimates. The government’s aim overall is to increase penetration to 80 percent, adding 100 million connections, over three years, according to Y.K. Gupta, an executive director at Indian Oil Corp., India’s largest fuel retailer.
The renewed focus on safer cooking options will drive LPG use up from records as the government tries to reduce the more than 900,000 premature deaths the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation attributed to household air pollution in 2013. It will also make India more import dependent and strain infrastructure. To cope, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd. estimates it and its peers will need to invest $1.5 billion over the next few years to build new plants, expand old ones and lay pipelines, plus additional outlays on improving port capacities.
“When you are pushed to deliver something by a target date, definitely there will be stress in the system, but that is good for the system,” Mukesh Kumar Surana, chairman of Hindustan Petroleum, said in an interview from Mumbai. “We will be pushed to work harder. It will help us study our assets better; lot of inefficiencies will get removed in the process by force.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has earmarked $1.2 million to provide free LPG connections to women from families living below the poverty line, adding to at least two other programs aimed at reducing the use of fuels such as wood and cow dung. The indoor and near-home pollution generated by burning these is the leading cause of premature death in India after high blood pressure, according to Kirk R. Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley.
Kamleshkunwar says four other families in her village of Bapaiya, Madhya Pradesh, have benefited from the government’s program. She and her husband are laborers, and the gas connection is one comfort in an otherwise hard life, she explained. Also, the hours they once spent collecting wood they now spend with their children.
For Rita Sharma, 27, a housewife in Mangrauli village about 22 miles from New Delhi, India’s capital, a government-subsidized connection she got about five months back was one of the best gifts of her 12 years of marriage.
“It has changed my life,” the mother of three said. “This is for women like me. It brings an end to the tears.”
LPG consumption was already growing at a steady clip in India as it spread from urban, to semi-urban and rural areas.
Usage has climbed at an average of 7 percent annually since 2000, touching a record 19.5 million tons in 2015-16, according to government data. Overseas purchases have grown more quickly and are poised to overtake domestic supply this fiscal year, according to Ashutosh Jindal, the joint secretary for marketing at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Some experts fear the government’s push to accelerate LPG adoption will be hampered by inadequate port and pipeline infrastructure, while new projects will face delays in approvals as well as hurdles to land acquisition and right of way.
“India no doubt suffers from inadequate infrastructure in regards to LPG imports,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, a Singapore-based consultant at Facts Global Energy. “While there are plans to expand import terminals and pipelines, they are moving at a slow pace.”
Indian Oil’s Gupta estimates the nation will build up to 7.5 million tons of new LPG import terminals over five years, including a 2-million-ton terminal at Paradip and two at Haldia on the east coast.