Perspectives and socio-economic aspects of improved cooking stove “Anagi"

Abstract

Among the improved cooking stoves in Sri Lanka, the most popular cooking stove is marketed with the trade name “Anagi”. It was first introduced by the Ceylon Electricity Board in 1986 as an alternative for low efficiency traditional cooking stove and high prices of the LP gas. This study mainly focuses on identifying user perception on improved cooking stoves (ICS) “Anagi”. The main objectives of the study were to find out the reasons for adapting to ICS “Anagi” by household, to identify the household characters of the users, to identify the problems associated with “Anagi” and to ascertain the appropriate suggestions for further improvement and popularizing the ICS “Anagi”. Data were collected from Matara District (Matara Municipal Council Area and Kubalgama village) in Southern Province, Sri Lanka during the first quarter, 2007. Respondents were selected by adapting purposive sample methods. Twenty respondents each from both urban and rural area were included to the 40 sample. Primary data were collected with the help of interview schedule, informal discussion and observations. The descriptive statistics and t test were employed to analysis the data. The empirical evidence suggests that majority of respondents used ICS “Anagi” due to convenience of cooking, fuel efficiency, low cost of the stove and reduce time for the cooking. “Anagi” stove are more popular in urban area (41%) compared to rural area (32%) and majority of the users were government officers. High, middle and low income groups use “Anagi” with LP gas stove, “Anagi” with traditional stove and “Anagi” stove only, respectively. Majority of “Anagi” users had studied up to GCE Advance level (A/L). Therefore, they considered cost of cooking, time consumption and fuel saving in using the stoves. On this basis, “Anagi” cooking stove could be easily popularized among the educated middle and low income groups of both urban and rural area. Most of respondent (39%) use “Anagi” for both cooking and boiling water for domestic uses. Fuel cost for cooking per person per months for “Anagi” (Rs.73.88) was significantly low compared to LP gas stove (Rs. 248.78). Therefore, “Anagi” is best the alternative for expensive energy sources. Fuel efficiency of “Anagi” (21.47 kg/month/family) was significantly higher compared to three stone traditional three stone stoves (43.86 kg/month/family). People perception on fuel efficiency of Anagi was also higher than traditions stove. Therefore, “Anagi” is a good alternative for rapidly increasing fuel cost for cooking in Sri Lankan households. Fuel source for “Anagi” in urban area is cinnamon stick and in rural area biomass viz. timber, coconut fronds and shell etc. Splitting of the stove, low continuous firing, lack of suitability for large size of pots, relatively higher amount of smoke and difficulties of removing the charcoals and ash were the identified as bottlenecks of the ICS “Anagi”. Mud insulation, introducing different sizes of the “Anagi” stove and increase hall size of the stove were the major alternatives suggested to overcome these bottlenecks. Further, people prefer to purchase the stove from the nearest market. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce proper distribution system to increase the usage of “Anagi” in rural as well as urban households.