Executive summary

The launch of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) scheme has fundamentally reshaped India’s efforts towards achieving universal access to clean cooking fuels. Between May 2016 and July 2026, over 105 million women from low-income households received deposit-free liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connections under the scheme (based on PMUY website as on 31 July 2026).

Despite this significant progress in expanding access to clean cooking energy, large sections of rural India still rely on solid fuels, such as firewood, coal, and cow dung cakes. According to NFHS-5 (2019–21), 41 per cent of Indian households use solid fuels for cooking, primarily firewood and dung cakes (IIPS 2021). This reliance is far more pronounced in rural areas, where 56 per cent of households use solid fuels, compared with only 10 per cent in urban areas. Latest data from HCES 2023–24 further show that 47 per cent of rural households use firewood as their primary cooking fuel (MoSPI 2025).

This gap between connections (i.e., LPG access) and consumption (i.e., sustained use) is primarily driven by costs, along with other factors such as poor accessibility in remote areas, and behavioural factors —leading to low refill rates for LPG in India (Kar et al. 2024). PMUY beneficiaries use only 4.8 cylinders per year (PPAC 2026), whereas a typical household needs seven to eight 14.2 kg LPG cylinders per year to achieve exclusive use (Mani et al. 2021). Data from the India Residential Energy Survey (IRES), indicate that 78 per cent of non-exclusive LPG users cite the high cost of LPG as a major barrier to sustained usage (Mani et al. 2021). Because refills are a recurring cash outlay that competes with food, rent and other essentials, while biomass typically carries no cash price, sustained clean fuel use is a question of affordability at the margin. Assessing the status of usage, and willingness to pay (WTP) is therefore crucial to understand this margin: it identifies the price point at which refill behaviour changes, and so bridges physical access and functional adoption.

That margin has become more precarious. Globally, there were indicators that the COVID-19 pandemic had reversed the gains in clean cooking access, and usage of clean cooking fuels in several developing countries (World Bank ESMAP 2022; Pachauri et al. 2021). This has impacted the WTP for clean fuels. Accordingly, this issue brief examines fuel choices for cooking and WTP for cleaner fuels, among economically vulnerable population groups. The findings presented here are part of a larger survey of more than 4,000 respondents across urban informal settlements (n = 1,116), migrant workers (n = 1,061) and rural households (n = 2,222). We selected these three respondent groups given they are more likely to rebound to solid fuels as a result of the pandemic. This issue brief presents findings from 2,222 rural households across six states—Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. The key respondents to the survey were the primary cook of households. The survey was conducted between November 2024 and January 2025.

Findings

1. Poor sustained usage of clean fuels persists in rural households.

The study finds that both LPG and firewood have prominent positions in the cooking fuel mix for rural households. Around 73 per cent of respondents reported using LPG during the three months preceding the survey. However, the majority of households continue to practise fuel stacking, combining LPG usage with solid fuels. Only 23 per cent reported exclusive use of LPG in the total sample. Around 48 per cent of households use LPG as their primary cooking fuel, while 50 per cent primarily use firewood.

Figure ES1. Out of the total households surveyed, only 23 per cent reported exclusive use of LPG.

Source: Authors’ analysis.
Note: (a) n = 2,222, (b) Data from 6 states: Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, (c) one square = 1 per cent of the group shown, (d) group values may not add up to 100 due to rounding off.

2. Affordability is the key barrier to the transition and sustained usage of LPG.

High LPG refill costs are a major deterrent to the transition and sustained usage of cleaner fuels. Among respondents who do not use LPG (n = 593), 70 per cent cited high refill costs as a significant barrier to transitioning, followed by factors such as the inconsistent availability of LPG, easy availability of firewood and a cultural preference for meals cooked on a chulha (traditional cookstove).

The WTP analysed in this study indicates stated preferences for LPG refill prices. To analyse WTP, households were asked the price they would be willing to pay for a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder to transition to exclusive LPG use. The study defines the ‘affordability limit’ as the maximum price point at which 80 per cent of households self-report that they would switch to exclusive use of LPG. The relevant policy question is therefore not what the average household can afford, but the price point that leaves the fewest households behind. We analysed the WTP across different LPG connection types (Figure ES2). Our survey results for the overall sample show that, at a stated WTP of INR 400, at least 80 per cent of respondents would transition to exclusive LPG use for cooking.

Figure ES2. 80% of respondents from our total sample self-report that at a price of INR 400 per cylinder, they would switch to exclusive use of LPG

This stated or self-reported WTP may not accurately reflect actual purchasing behaviour if LPG prices change in the future, because stated WTP often overestimates actual behaviour change. Households may continue to rely on locally collected firewood and other solid fuels as secondary fuels alongside LPG for their cooking needs. Such discrepancies between stated responses and revealed preferences are well documented (Mobarak et al. 2012). Thus, stated WTP may not accurately reflect real-world choices.

3. Home delivery rates remain low for rural households.

Only 47 per cent of LPG-using households (n = 1,629) reported receiving doorstep delivery. The remaining respondents travelled to LPG distributors, kirana (grocery shop) stores, or roadside collection points to obtain refills, incurring additional time, costs, and effort in the refill process. CEEW has previously documented this delivery gap — in a 2024 survey, only 52 per cent of rural distributors self-reported delivering LPG to more than 90 per cent of their consumers (Kar et al. 2024). This delivery gap underscores the need to rethink last-mile distribution models, particularly in remote rural areas.

Recommendations

This issue brief proposes 4 key measures to improve the transition to cleaner cooking fuels:

• Address the affordability challenge.
  As of July 2026, the subsidised price for one 14.2 kg cylinder is INR 642 (consider retail price in Delhi). The government must consider expanding the PMUY subsidy by an additional INR 200, bringing the price closer to INR 400, where 80 per cent of households self-report a willingness to use LPG exclusively. While the subsidised price of one 14.2 kg cylinder has fluctuated between INR 553 and INR 642 in the last 1 year, we assume INR 600 as a reference point for the recommendation and suggest an additional subsidy of INR 200. This however does not imply that increasing subsidy would definitely lead to increased usage - stated WTP may not accurately reflect real-world choices (Mobarak et al. 2012). It would also be important to innovate measures that support rural households to overcome the ‘lumpiness’ of payments for LPG refills. The government could, thus, explore mechanisms to enable mobile-phonebased micro-savings and micro-distributors.
• Address barriers beyond affordability through behaviour change interventions.
  It would be important to address barriers beyond affordability and costs—such as awareness gaps, and socio-cultural preferences. These should be targeted through focused behaviour change interventions through multi-channel campaigns using radio, street theatre, and door-to-door outreach by local female community workers. These campaigns should explicitly encourage sustained post-adoption usage rather than initial access alone, along with covering aspects of health and environmental impact. Similar campaigns, supported by the Clean Cooking Alliance, have also demonstrated success in several other countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria (Johnson et al. 2020; Evans et al. 2017).
• Enhance last-mile delivery and logistics.
  Out of the non-LPG users from our sample (n = 593), around 30 per cent of households do not use it due to issues with refilling, such as inconsistent availability or long wait times. CEEW recommends a differentiated commission model for LPG distributors based on their level of systemic disadvantage (Kar et al. 2024). CEEW had previously proposed replacing the current flat commission of INR 73.08 per cylinder, with a differentiated model that categorises distributors based on their level of structural disadvantage. Under the proposed model, distributors classified as severely disadvantaged would receive a targeted top-up commission to offset higher delivery costs, such as those associated with longdistance trips that often result in failed deliveries (Kar et al. 2024). This would help ensure that rural households are not pushed back towards using biomass fuels due to unreliable LPG supply.
• Promote other fuel pathways in the medium-to-long run to move beyond LPG.
  Heavy dependence on a single fuel exposes vulnerable populations to price volatility and supply shocks (Ali 2025; Shukla 2026), as seen during the recent West Asia crisis. India’s clean cooking mix must diversify in the medium-to-long term. In rural regions, the government should promote electric cooking, as well as biogas-based cooking as supplementary fuels with LPG (Kar and Auddy 2026; Auddy and Das 2026; Kar and Gill 2026). Induction cookstoves could be provided at discounted rates through LPG distributors, given their extensive on-ground presence across India. For biogas, India’s dairy belt, especially states such as Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh, should explore biogasbased cooking. CEEW estimates that if just 25 per cent of India’s approximately 40 million cattlerearing households (i.e., 10 million households) shifted to biogas, this could save up to INR 2,000 crore annually in LPG import costs (Kar and Gill 2026; Jain et al. 2026).