Cook electric
Practical Action
bijuli dekchis to encourage people to buy them. The initial 33 per cent subsidy reduced cooker
costs to US$13 an US$20 for the three- and eight-litre cookers respectively. ACAP's policy is to
ensure that production and sales of cookers are sustainable in the long term, which means that
subsidy levels are gradually being reduced on the dekchis. The largest 20-litre cookers, which are
used almost exclusively by the tourist lodges, are not subsidized at all.
In the first two years of the programme, 85 cookers were sold in Ghandruk. The initial demand
came mainly from the lodges, but over time interest from householders grew steadily, so that after
three years equal numbers had been sold to lodges and houses.
The spread of the dekchis was stimulated largely by word of mouth, reflecting the satisfaction
expressed by the users. Confidence in the cookers was initially low amongst women because they
had very limited exposure to, and understanding of, new technologies. But once they were familiar
with the cookers, they were only too keen to extoll their virtues.
A Ghandruk Family
Asha Gurung lives with her family in a typical two-storey stone house in Ghandruk. Her father is
retired from the Indian army, her brother works for ACAP and she and her sister study at the
school in the village. The family is largely self-sufficient in food, and they are able to sell a small
surplus of maize and potatoes. They keep two buffaloes for milk.
The family uses a back boiler to heat water for bathing and preparing animal feed. Asha and her
sister-in-law are responsible for collecting wood for the household. According to Asha, they need
to go further to collect wood now than in the past. 'We spend nearly six hours every wood
collection day - ten years ago it would only take three hours'.
The family uses electricity for lighting, cooking and for the television. Asha's mother, Budhi
Kumari, was inspired to buy a dekchi after seeing a drama about it performed by a group of local
women. They now have two dekchis, which they use for cooking rice and water. 'It is much more
convenient for us to use the dekchi for heating water', says Asha. 'It is easy to handle and to
clean, and the food tastes better from it. We just wish we had a larger one for when we have
guests'.
The family uses nearly 15kg of firewood every day for cooking. Asha thinks the bijuli dekchis
reduce their consumption of fuelwood by half. She says their fuelwood use has also gone down
since the introduction of the television, which attracts many of their neighbours in the evenings.
'We tend not to sit around the fire for social chit-chats, so we use less wood now', says Asha.
The most important advantages are savings in cooking time and convenience, as a result of having
a constant supply of hot water. Savings in fuelwood are also impressive. A study in January 1994
showed that 9 out of every 10 households using the cookers achieved 30-40 per cent savings in
fuelwood use, and most lodges were saving nearly a bbari (30kg) of wood per day.
The advent of electric cooking has also resulted in increased use of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG)
and kerosene in Ghandruk, because they are particularly suitable for fast cooking, using water
already heated cheaply by micro-hydro power. Similarly, purchases of solar water heaters have
increased. This is partly because the 24-hour availability of hydro-electricity provides a reliable
back-up when cloudy days limit the use of the solar heaters. It is also in response to tourist
preferences for lodges that do not use fuelwood.
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