L'utilisation de l'énergie dans les régions rurales de l'Inde
Authors: Chatterjee Srikumar , Biswas Arabindo 
Published: April 2018

Energy Utilisation in Rural India.

India is a village based country. About 80 percent of total population are living in 5.76 lakh villages. These villages are distributed throughout India, and play a significant role in Indian economy. So study of energy utilisation in rural India is not only desirable but essential.

From an energy point of view rural India can be thought of as a partially closed ecosystem. Rural people are mostly working as an autotrophs in the energy fixation cycle. The significant thing of energy utilisation in rural India is its dependence on non-commercial and animate energy. Inversely urban people are much oriented towards commercial energy. It is observed that urban people are using 188.1 Mtcr of commercial energy whereas rural people are using only 9.1 Mtcr. Again in the case of non-commercial energy, share of rural people stands as 146 .70 Mtcr against 32.70 Mtcr of urban people. Per capita energy use in urban area (2.03 tcr) is much higher than that of rural people (0.351 tcr).

In rural India the principal sources of energy are 1) non-commercial-firewood (including charcoal), cow dung and crop waste 2) Animate-Human and Animal.

In addition to these, some commercial sources also contribute in the form of fertiliser, kerosene and electricity.

In non-commercial sources, fire woods are available from 1) recorded sources like forest areas under Government, Semi Government and Private ownership. 2) Un-recorded sources i.e. trees in waste lands and similar areas, which are not covered in the above categories.

The recorded fuel output in 1969-70 was 12.86 million cubic meter or about 9 million tons. According to the Fuel Policy Committee (FPC) (2nd) the consumption of fire wood in that year was 100 million tons. So about 91 million tons were extracted from un-recorded sources.

The next important source is cow dung, which is assumed to supply 20 % of total fuel. Total production of dried cow dung is 102.5 million tons or 41 Mtcr. The third item in non-commercial group is crop residues. It accounts for 15 % of total fuel used in rural India. Total production of crop residues are 262.633 million tons. Out of that 71 million tons are used for fuel, which is equivalent to 28.4 Mtcr.

From these three non-commercial sources per capita availability stands as 334 Kg.cr, in 1978-79, which was 323 Kg.cr. in 1970-71.

From the animate sources total energy available is 27 Mtcr from animal and 21.6 Mtcr from human. Per capita availability stands as 90 Kg.cr. So available energy from these two sources are 423 Kg.cr. From the commercial source group coal, electricity and petro-chemical in the form of fertilizer are totally used. Specific discussion regarding these may be done in the utilisation section.

The principal energy use in the rural India is related to 1) Agriculture and allied activities, 2) Domestic activities including cooking, 3) Transportation, 4) Household works and 5) Social amenities. Use of different energy sources are involved in combination for these economic activities.

In agricultural sector almost all mechanical energy is supplied by human labour and draught animal. Energy in the form of sun's rays and rainfall are abundantly available to raise two to three crops almost from all cultivable lands. Hence it has not been accounted.

Total fertilizers used in agriculture are 2.16 million tons of Nitrogen and 0.77 million tons of Phosphate. About 3.60 million irrigation pumpsets are energised. Total energy used in this activity is 5.6 Mtcr. Considering all these sources together, it is observed that in agricultural sector total energy used is in the order of 48.68 Mtcr or 2.434 x 1014 Kcal. So per capita energy use stands as 95.4Kg.cr. Andper hectare energy use is recorded at 291.8 Kg.cr. Per capita energy use in 1971-72 was 102.5 Kg.cr. The decrease in per capita use may be attributed to the fact that agricultural development cannot cope up with population growth.

The next important sector where considerable amount of energy is spent is domestic work including cooking. In cooking fire wood, cow dung and crop waste are used in the proportion of 65 %, 20 % and 15 % respectively. Total energy involved in this sector amounts 1 06 Mtcr. So per capita use stapds about 200 Kg.cr. Human energy involved in this sector is 9.6 Mtcr. or 48 x 10 Kcal. In per capital terms it is 18 Kg.cr. (approximately). Combining these two 218 Kg.cr. of energy are spent in the domestic work. It should be remembered that in rural India, domestic works are almost entirely done by women folk.

In transportation human and animal energy is combinedly used in the order of 0.35 x 101 Kcal or 7 Mtcr. In lightening and others sectors like village industries the utilisation of energy amounts to 20 Mtcr or 1 .00 x 10 14 Kcal.

Hence total energy utilisation in all the sectors is equivalent to 190.48 Mtcr or 9.56 x 1014 Kcal. In per capita terms the utilisation stands as 347 Kg.cr. or 1.735 x 106 Kcal.

It is evident from the study that entire rural people are dependent on the use of traditional energy. It is a fact that the cooking fuel are mostly available in zero cost (of course not accounting for the labour, that is spent in collection). In rural India about 33 % of total population cooks once in day. Cooking time is twice for another 40 %. Lack of fuel energy is not the reason. The reason lies with their economic condition. The economic constraints will not allow the rural people to go for other systems of cooking which are capital intensive. Rural electrification, Tractor and Biogas are introduced, but their concentration is in the urban fringe areas and in some big villages. Their overall impact is very low in comparison to the traditional modes.

The major problem of energy utilisation in rural India is inefficient use. It is calculated that the useful energy is 1.3 million joules/year against total input of 17.2 billon joules/year. In almost all sectors, this inefficiency prevails. Another problem to mention is that the use of fuel wood, whether it is in waste land or in forest, is detrimental to the environment . Use of cow dung as fuel is also not proper in the sense that it has an alternative and better use as fertilizer.

In conclusion it can be said that per capita energy used in rural India is higher when all the sources-commercial, non-commercial and animate are considered. The dependence on traditional source is mainly for economic condition. It is obvious that the sofisticated technology of energy production will remain outside the reach of rural population. The rural people as they are active today in energy cycle should be more efficiently involved. The people have to produce their own energy with maximum efficiency, which need development of appropriate technology at the base level. It is certain that development of rural people is inticrately related with the development of appropriate technology (suited to the rural people) of energy use.