Energy consumption pattern for household activities for selected villages of Thar Desert

Abstract

The paper attempts to examine the role of woman in carrying out different household activities in rural areas of Western Rajasthan, commonly known as Thar Desert. The study is based on primary data collected for 213 farm women from two villages selected from Zones III (300= rainfall &lt 400 mm/yr) and Zone IV (rainfall =400 mm/yr) of Jodhpur and Pali Districts, respectively. The data pertained to the agricultural. year 1999-00-2001. The study revealed that maximum time (35.8%) of a farm women was spent in cooking followed by washing and cleaning (25.7) % in the village Siwas (Zone IV). In the village Choukha (Zone III) the time spent in washing and cleaning was 33.9 % followed by cooking (27.2 %). The source-wise energy requirements for carrying out various household activities in Zone III (village Choukha) and Zone IV (village Siwas) were about the same i.e., 16156.2 and 17038.1 MJ/capita/yr. Similarly, the consumption of non-commercial energy (human, firewood and dry dung cakes) remained more or less same in both the zones, i.e. 19274.0 and 20622.0 MJ/capita/yr, respectively for village Siwas (Zone IV) and Choukha (Zone III). However, the consumption of commercial energy (electricity, kerosene and LPG) was found to be more (71.4%) in village Choukha (Zone III) as compared to Siwas (Zone IV).