NMICS 2010 Report - Central Bureau of Statistics

NMICS 2010, Mid- and Far Western RegionsSolid fuel useMore than three billion people around the world rely on solid fuels (biomass and coal) for their basicenergy needs, such as cooking and heating. Cooking and heating with solid fuels with traditionalcooking stoves leads to high levels of indoor smoke, a complex mix of health-damaging pollutants.The main problem with the use of solid fuels is pollution from the products of incompletecombustion, including CO, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, SO 2 , and other toxic elements. Use of solidfuels increases the risks of acute respiratory illness, pneumonia, chronic obstructive lung disease andcancer, and possibly of tuberculosis, low birth weight, cataracts and asthma. The main indicator isthe proportion of the population using solid fuels as the primary source of domestic energy forcooking.Overall, nearly 93 percent of all household members in the MFWR used solid fuels for cooking (TableCH.10). Use of solid fuels was common among household members across all subregions, although itwas a little lower in the Terai than the Hills and Mountains. It was almost universal in rural areas (95percent) compared to urban areas (74 percent). It was also higher in households whose householdhead had no education (97 percent) compared to households whose household head had at leastsecondary education (86 percent). Although household members in the four poorest wealthquintiles had similar levels of use, at 99 percent, households in the richest quintile had strikinglylower use, at only 66 percent. Most household members use firewood (92 percent) for cookingpurposes; this was followed by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (four percent) and biogas (threepercent).72