2 days ago
Eco-friendly cookstoves are making a revolution in Udaipur's remote areas
Combining climate resilience with market linkages, a women-led enterprise in Rajasthan's Udaipur district has evolved a model for clean technology by supplying eco-friendly modern cookstoves to the rural households, which have saved thousands of tonnes of firewood in the tribal-dominated region. The high-efficiency cookstoves have replaced the traditional mud and stone stoves.
The community-owned Udaipur Urja Initiatives (UUI),a farmer producer company, has created a network of 400 women entrepreneurs and reached out to 65,000 households.
The single burner cookstoves, designed to cater to the needs of rural women, have been developed on the principle of efficient and complete combustion. These stoves, operating on all solid fuels such as wood, agro-residue and dry dung, minimise harmful emissions of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and particular matter. They have been certified by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Bureau of Indian Standards.
The rated thermal efficiency of the cookstoves is more than 30%, which reduces the cooking time by half and cuts the requirement of firewood by almost two thirds when compared to traditional mud or three-stone based stoves. The cookstoves are at present manufactured at the plant of an organisation, Greenway Grameen, in Gujarat's Vadodara.
UUI chief executive officer Saumyajit Auddy told The Hindu that the enterprise was working in over 300 remote and scattered villages across eight tehsils in Udaipur and Salumbar districts, inhabited by the Scheduled Tribe communities of Bhil, Meena and Garasiya. 'The women of these households were earlier traversing long distances in the uneven hilly terrains to collect firewood from the forest,' Mr. Auddy said.
The red tape surrounding the implementation of the Forest Rights Act has made it difficult for tribal women to access the forests for collection of firewood. Most of the households have to purchase firewood from the market at the prices which have increased by four to five times in the last five years.
Nathi Bai of Dholi Ghati village in Udaipur's Gogunda block said the new cookstove had reduced her cooking time by two hours every day. 'I don't purchase firewood from the market anymore. Small twigs and branches of trees in and around my house are more than sufficient… I get to save ₹1,000 every month,' she said.
Gavri Bai, functioning as the project's monitor in Bagdunda village, said she had supplied 240 cookstoves during the last four years and only 30 of them had so far required minor repairing. Ms. Bai said she was visiting the households every day, where she was known by her name. 'The Urja project has given me an identity of my own,' she said.
Radha Devi of Jhadol block's Godawara village said her eyes no longer burned and there was no coughing in the preparation of food for her family. 'After so may years, the wall of my room did not get blackened with soot and there was no need to repaint, thanks to the new stoves,' she said.
