Indoor Air Pollution

Indoor air pollution is the degradation of indoor air quality by harmful chemicals and other materials; it can be up to 10 times worse than outdoor air pollution. In India, out of 0.2 billion people using fuel for cooking, 49% use firewood, 8.9% cow dung cake, 1.5% coal, lignite, or charcoal, 2.9% kerosene, 28.6% liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), 0.1% electricity, 0.4% biogas and 0.5% any other means. Among the 70% of the country's rural population, about 80% households rely on biomass fuel making India top of the list of countries with the largest population lacking access to cleaner fuel for cooking. High reliance in Biomass fuels leads to indoor air pollution (IAP), which yields high levels of pollutants that penetrate deep into the lungs and can be 100 times higher than acceptable levels. In India, poor indoor air quality is the second highest cause of death after high blood pressure, with 1.3 million deaths each year. 

Dharmalife Response
Only a fraction (0.25%) of Indian households actually uses Induction Cooking Solutions today. Dharmalife promotes the adoption and continued usage of clean cooking products.
We have been conducting the Dharma Chef campaign, which aims to improve awareness, adoption and usage of clean cooking devices in rural India. The Primary focus is to get the women to experience cooking on induction cooktops and be convinced about its benefits, ease of use, and the unaltered taste of food cooked on it.

Impact:
Dharmalife has reached over 10,000 households with improved cook stoves and induction cooktops since 2011.
More than 22,000 clean cooking devices have reached rural consumers through Dharmalife so far.