Author(s): Arpita Jain and Neeta Lodha

Abstract:
Energy conservation while cooking in household (HH) is a major challenge and opportunity to curtail greenhouse gases (GHGs) and reduce climate change (CC) thus, lowering global warming (GW). People are gaining greater awareness of the value and need of sustainable energy practices, particularly growing public concerns regarding GW. But, still people fail to take noticeable steps towards energy efficiency (EE) and energy conservation (EC). This account for the fact that there is often a sizeable discrepancy between people’s self-reported knowledge, values, attitudes, intentions and their observable behaviours i.e. ‘knowledge-action gap’. In this case, when knowledge is imparted it plays a crucial role in developing understanding regarding various aspects of EE and EC, helpful in saving energy for future use. Two hundred forty households were selected from four villages i.e. 60 HHs from each village of Udaipur district having higher energy consumption in kitchen in household system. An interview schedule was used to gather the relevant information regarding respondents’ knowledge about various fuel conservation practices which includes all the fuels used for cooking in kitchen in HH system. The findings highlighted that rural respondents had good knowledge regarding fuel conservation practices in HH. This was due to the fact that respondents were influenced by the mass media and exposure to the latest information on account of closeness to the city and impact of urbanization, industrialization, technological advancement and sanskritization.