Electric stoves cut firewood costs by 60pc, AKRSP says

Households in parts of northern Pakistan that have switched from firewood to electric cooking stoves are spending about 60 per cent less on fuel, according to the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, which says it has distributed 50,000 subsidised appliances in the past year.

The figures were carried by the Associated Press of Pakistan on Friday. The report did not say which districts or towns received the stoves, did not give a unit price for the appliances and did not name the funders behind the subsidy.

AKRSP put the saving at around 60 per cent of what households previously spent on firewood. The wire report described the 50,000 appliances as subsidised but gave no cost for the programme as a whole and no figure for what each household paid.

The report also did not say how much electricity the stoves use, or what a household now pays to run one. Its only stated measure of the benefit is the drop in firewood spending.

The Tribune, in a separate report, said families in Rawalpindi are turning back to firewood as gas becomes more expensive. That account concerns gas supply and pricing in Rawalpindi, and does not deal with the northern districts covered by the AKRSP figures.

The two reports describe household cooking fuel moving in opposite directions at once. In parts of the north, subsidised electric cooking is displacing wood, according to AKRSP. In Rawalpindi, the price of gas is pushing families back to wood, according to The Tribune.

Neither report gave the number of households in Pakistan that cook with firewood, the share of household spending that fuel represents, or the total saving AKRSP attributes to the 50,000 stoves.