Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part D (2025)

India being an agricultural country has a huge potential of biomass in the form of crop residues. It is also produced as a by-product in many agro based industries. Rural households in India are almost entirely reliant on loose biomass viz. agricultural residues, animal dung and wood for their basic cooking fuel needs. Direct burning of loose biomass fuel in chulha is associated with very low thermal efficiency and widespread air pollution which causes serious health problems like difficulty in breathing, irritation in eyes, chronic respiratory diseases and headache because of smoke from these smoke particulates. It also leads to a large number of premature annual deaths among pregnant women. Based on this rationale, an exploratory research was carried out to study the existing fuel use pattern and to introduce biomass pellets and pellet stoves in rural households of Hisar district. More than half of the respondents had nuclear type family (58.18%), belonged to young age group (54.54%), were illiterate (51.81%) and had farming as main occupation (55.45%). Families also had low family education status (38.18%). Cent per cent respondents used traditional chulha and crop residues for cooking activity. A vast majority of respondents were responsible for fuel collection (74.54%) and carried it on head (87.27%). Respondent made 5-7 trips/week (68.18%), collected 16-20kg biomass/trip (61.81%), spent 3-4hrs/trip (59.09%), and for fuel collection covered 5-7 km distance per trip (47.27%). They used 6-8 kg biomass/day (56.36%). In phase II, training on use of biomass pellet stoves was imparted to 110 respondents selected purposively, depending upon their willingness and participate. Cent per cent respondents perceived it as beneficial as it was smoke free and there was no blackening of utensils, clothes and walls (88.18%). Ash content was much lower and there was no mess around the stove after using it. A vast majority of respondents also found it simple to use, easy to store, and easy to move from one place to another. Maximum respondents used pellet stove for water boiling (90.00%), chapati making (89.09%), milk boiling (80.90%), and daal preparation (68.18%). A small percentage of respondents also used it for vegetable preparation (26.36%), tea preparation (10.90%) and parantha making (7.27%). Majority (88.18%) of the respondents used ½ kg pellets at a time. Maximum respondents reported that pellet stove took 10-15 minutes to ignite in the beginning and ½ kg of pellets burnt for 45 minutes, once the stove is ignited. The findings of this exploratory research work can have important implications both for the policy makers as well as field functionaries. Mass media can also play an important role in propagating the use of clean green fuel from biomass.