3,860 rural kitchens go smokeless

In rural Karnataka, 3,860 households will no longer have to waste time over fetching precious firewood, inhale soot or blow their lungs out to cook a day's meal. All houses got brand new LPG connections within a month under the Mission Smokeless Village.
Ramanagaram district ranks first in terms of LPG penetration with 1,997 new installations of gas cylinders followed by Chikkaballapur with 437 and Chitradurga with 264 new LPG installations, reports IndianOil.So far 60 villages in Karnataka have been declares smokeless.
Stressing the need to turn rural India and Karnataka smokefree, Indrajit Bose, executive director (corporate communications and branding) IndianOil, said: "Rural women continue to toil to fetch fire wood, crop residues and cattle dung daily to light up their chulha. This results not only in waste of energy and time, but also to severe health hazards among kids and adults."
"Over four million people undergo premature deaths annually due to household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels and 50% of deaths among children below 5 years of age are attributable to pneumonia caused by soot inhaled from indoor air pollution.Exposure to indoor pollution is equivalent to smoking 400 cigarettes a day," he added.
S Varadachari, general manager in-charge, IndianOil, Karnataka chapter, said: "Our team from Bengaluru had to do extensive footwork, visiting villagers door to door and educating them about the need to switch to LPG mode. The elected members of panchayats from all these vil lages were called for a discussion on the mission. A detailed survey was conducted of all houses to ascertain LPG connections, ventilation, kitchen platform and affordability."
"LPG registration camps were conducted in each village and value added measures were adopted to enrol customers. After the final survey that ascertained that every villager had LPG connection, the village was officially declared smokeless by the panchayat," he added.
Abhijit Dey, DGM (LPG), Karnataka, said: "Installation of LPG has double benefit. The villagers would now have a bank account and their LPG subsidy would go to their accounts, besides improving their health."
Times View
It's laudable that IndianOil is ensuring a clean, healthy and smokefree environment in rural India. Its Mission Smokeless Villages is reaching many households in the hinterland that earlier depended on the scarce and precious firewood for cooking and other purposes. By offering LPG connections to villagers, it's ensuring that the fruits of development are not consumed by a minuscule section of society alone. Such steps in social inclusion will hopefully lead to better standards of living for a vast majority residing in villages. The government must also ensure that the supply of LPG is consistent and smooth.