Economic growth not only changed the food consumption pattern in rural households but has also encouraged rural India to go for more efficient energy sources like liquefied petroleum gas.

The was part of the findings in the survey report released on Monday by the National Sample Survey Organisation. The 61st round of survey was conducted between July 2004 and June 2005. The data were collected from a sample of 79,298 rural households spread over 7,999 villages and 45,346 urban households in 4,602 urban blocks.

The survey further revealed that though three-fourth of rural India still relies on firewood and chips as the main energy source for cooking, the number of households using LPG increased six-fold from a meagre 2 per cent in 1993-94 to 11.7 per cent in 2004-05.

"This is a significant improvement. It is because, LPG availability has increased in rural areas," said Pronab Sen, the Chief Statistician of India. "But this growth is insufficient. We should have reached at least at a level where 30 per cent of rural households use gas for cooking," he added.

The survey found that LPG was slowly gaining acceptance because of its improved availability and convenience.

"The use of LPG increased by 3 percentage points during 1999-2005 at all-India level. The use of LPG for cooking increased by 14 percentage points in the rural areas of Punjab," the survey report said.

"This increase is due to the low-cost nature of LPG due to high level of subsidy the government is providing. Traditional fuels are also becoming difficult to find due to deforestation," said Laveesh Bhandari, the director of the economics research firm Indicus Analytics.

Use of LPG was relatively common in Punjab (24 per cent), Haryana (19 per cent), Kerala (18 per cent), Maharashtra (15 per cent) and rare in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.

In the latter group, LPG is consumed in less than 3 per cent of the rural households.