• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Preeti Mehra

New Delhi , Oct. 4

IT'S called killing two birds with the same stone — Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) is doing precisely that as it executes its LPG Rasoi Ghar (community kitchen) project across the rural heartland.

First and foremost, the idea is to introduce rural households to this clean, efficient alternate fuel to firewood, expand its usage, and second, to address crying health and environment issues stalking the hinterland.

With the help of the Marketing and Research Team (MART), New Delhi, the company has already rolled out over 600 community kitchens in 2,000-plus population villages in half-a-dozen States, where women from the poorer sections can experience the convenience of cooking with LPG in a pollution-free environment.

The project involves HPCL setting up a community kitchen in each village equipped with gas stoves and connections, in a space accessible to the socially and economically backward classes. With the involvement of the village Self-Help Group (SHG), a caretaker is appointed and women are encouraged to bring in their raw material and cook for a small fee.

By and by, as women understand the safety aspects of LPG and get hooked to easy cooking, SHGs also set up `kitty' schemes where monthly contributions lead to women in turn acquiring their own LPG connection. HPCL, on its part, has designed smaller, Rs 99 refill cylinders for these areas along with a permanent connection at Rs 800. MART's own research showed that at an average cooking fuel costs per family in rural India is Rs 270 per month, hence after the initial LPG connection, fuel costs could be brought down substantially.

"Once all the women realise the benefit, ease, safety and health aspects of cooking on LPG and the easy finance helps them get their own connection, HPCL will uproot its fixed assets in terms of the community kitchen and move it to the next village for a similar exercise," explains Mr S.V. Shahni, Executive Director, HPCL.

In fact, other oil marketing companies have also been asked by the Union Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyer, to join the project and cover as much as they can of rural India.

"It is a mammoth task and involves the cooperation of the village panchayat, the SHGs and the community. We've achieved success wherever SHGs have been involved. And now forest departments, Lions and Rotary clubs are also pitching in with help," says Mr Shahni. HPCL is spending at an average Rs 8,000 to set up a kitchen for a 20-family community.

The concept is also being extended to serve more purposes than one. The draft for the National Level Programme of Rasoi Ghars includes making the community kitchen a hub that could do more things than one — cook the mid-day meal for the local school, double up as a service counter and dealership outlet for the company and help augment the caretaker's earnings by serving as a tea-cum-kirana store.

Says Mr Pradeep Kashyap, Director, MART, "Besides negating the arduous three-to-four-hour task of collecting firewood, as women have to travel far with forests receding at a fast pace, it is also vital for women's health that they use clean fuel for cooking."

A study sponsored by the World Health Organisation, in fact, revealed that Indian women who use firewood regularly for cooking inhale the same amount of carcinogen benzopyrene as if they were to smoke 20 packets of cigarettes a day.

In terms of deforestation, a study conducted jointly by HPCL and the Maharashtra Forest Department showed that the firewood consumption of a four-member household is around four kilograms a day or about 10 small trees (shrubs). This translates into average household firewood usage of 300 small trees a month or 3,600 small trees a year. Shifting women to LPG would take care of a large part of this deforestation.

The Rasoi Ghar project has also met with success when attached to a hospital premises. At the district level and the towns, it serves as a base for families who come from their villages for medical treatment. Now a few community kitchens have even come up at Octroi posts for long-haul bus drivers who prefer to prepare their own meals.

The draft plan seeks to target all 80,000 villages in 10 years, with priority given to those that have a large SC\ST\OBC population. The Rural Marketing Summit in Mumbai on October 5-6 is to showcase the HPCL project and several others.

More Stories on : Society & Development | Rural Development | Petroleum

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Ranbaxy asks doctors to prescribe Rofibax only for short-term use

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line