(FE)
After the completion of 100% household electrification through the Saubhagya scheme, the government is now exploring ways to increase the usage of electricity for cooking. Apart from reducing emissions, electricity-based cooking is also seen to reduce the country’s import dependency for energy. Experts are also banking on rising solar generation capacity to completely replace kerosene as a source of cooking fuel.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has requested the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) to divert a part of the cooking gas and kerosene subsidy (around Rs 25,000 crore/year) towards solar photovolataic (PV) cooking.
“We have no such mechanism to transfer subsidy amount towards solar cooking,” a senior MoPNG official told FE. The MNRE proposed that out of the Rs 50,000 required to install solar PV cooking systems in a household, the MoPNG could pay `20,000 as subsidy, while the rest could be mobilised through bank loans. The petroleum ministry is understood to have given its comments to MNRE on this issue.
As FE reported earlier, recognising the fact that subsidies on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were creating distortions in adopting cleaner forms of fuel, the NITI Aayog had suggested to the MoPNG that beneficiaries of LPG subsidy should instead be given a ‘cooking subsidy’ to allow consumers the freedom to decide on the cooking fuel variant.
