A very high priority is attached by the Government to conservation of LPG and kerosene in view of the need to reduce ever increasing gap between demand for and indigenous supply of crude oil and petroleum products.

In the mechanized and the fast-moving world of today the consumption of LPG and kerosene has become an important yardstick of a country's prosperity.

Despite the discovery of new sources of unconventional energy, petroleum remains the primary energy source in India, and even more so, all over the world. The consumption of petroleum in the world, which started as a few tones a year around 140 years ago, has reached over 3000 Million metric tones (MMT) per year! Even in India, it is increasing at a very steep rate from 3.5 MMT in 1950-51 to 74.7 MMT in 1995-96. This is expected to reach 130 MMT in 2001-2002 and 175 MMT in 2006-2007.

Out of the known reserves, only a part may be technically economically feasible to explore. This fact, coupled with the present and expected consumption rates implies that these reserves may not last beyond the next 30 years.

For India, the situation could be even more difficult. Given our limited reserves, our present known stocks may not last even 10 years at the current consumption rate. Our present indigenous production is only 30.86 MMT and is less than 50% of our annual requirement.

Therefore, the need of the hour is to conserve petroleum by its judicious use, substituting it by other resources wherever feasible and restricting its use only to the essential needs.

Fuel Conservation, then becomes our joint responsibility be it the industries, individual citizens, organizations, Oil Companies or the Government. Each one of us has specific and significant roles to play.

Overall Strategy of Promoting Oil Conservation :

Government has initiated various steps to promote conservation of petroleum products in the transport, industrial, agricultural and domestic sectors. These include adoption of measures and practices which are conducive to increase fuel efficiency and training programme in the transport sector;  and promotion of fuel efficient practices and equipment in the industrial sector; as well as promotion of the use of fuel efficient equipment and appliances like Pressure Cookers in the household sector. These activities are promoted and coordinated by the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) and Oil Marketing Companies under the guidance and supervision of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.

Pressure Cooker is a fast cooking machine, that cooks food under high pressure and saves upto 70% of fuel as compared to ordinary cooking. Thus there is a huge contribution of pressure cookers in fuel conservation. Despite its huge fuel savings potential, only 34 per cent of Indian households use pressure cooker, translated into numbers it will be 61 million.  63 per cent of pressure cookers are bought by households with a monthly income of Rs 5,000 or less and only 37 per cent of pressure cookers are bought by rich households. Government should make more efforts to let the pressure cookers reach in each and every house so that the maximum fuel be saved for country's prosperity. It is understood that the government can not afford to offer subsidy to the pressure cooker manufacturing industries in order to make available pressure cookers at cheaper rates to the poorest citizen but duties and taxes can be minimized or abolished on the pressure cookers. The poor can buy more bread for his children with the money he saves from cut in fuel costs with the use of pressure cooker.

Would that, a poor can buy a pressure cooker and may involve himself in the contribution of fuel conservation for the country's economy!

How does the Pressure Cooker balance the Government budget.

LPG and Kerosene are subsidized products. Our Government has to pay a huge amount as subsidy on these products in order to make available these essentials at cheaper rates to the poor citizens. This subsidy amount can be reduced if consumption of LPG and Kerosene is controlled. Pressure Cooker saves up to 70 % of fuel as compared to ordinary cooking methods. Subsidy amount saved on this 70% saving of fuel is itself a revenue earned by Government. And it is not a one time earning, as in case of tax earning at the time of sale of product, but the pressure cookers let the government earn revenue day after day, year after year ultimately through out its life. At last when its life ends it is sold as scrap for recycling to produce other products and pays further taxes and duties to the government. Hence the pressure cooker should be completely exempted from excise duty and other taxes in order to encourage its maximum use for fuel conservation.

Subsidy on Cooking fuel

Ramesh Jain