As 70 percent of the agriculture based population lives in villages where  the only accessible source of fuel is wood fuel, cow dung cakes and agricultural waste material like wheat straw, culms of crops left in the field and the twigs of plants which have dried up. Women tread 2 to 5 km to fetch the wood for the household as cooking is their responsibility and women including girls are often subjected to sexual abuse while going for wood collections deep into woods.

A head load of wood has to be collected almost every day to cook for the family of 5 to 8 people with family planning taking a back seat after the defeat of Mrs Indira Gandhi in whose time family planning was a burning issue. Uncontrolled birth rate and reducing death rates are fueling the problem of population which mainly thrives of tree felling for cooking needs . The result is obvious not only in India but also in African and even south American nations the rural poor are subjected to indoor pollution for burning semi dried biomass with poor calorific value and poor efficiency stove. Social Policy Research Institute founded by Mr Shiv Charan Mathur and presently known as Shiv Charan Mathur Social Policy Research Institute , Jhalana Industrial area Jaipur along with Humana People to people India under Mrs Annie Marie took advantage of the vast amount of knowledge generated at the Energy plantation demonstration project sanctioned by Department of Biotechnology Govt of India at the University of Rajasthan Jaipur of the work carried out by our group at the University and fences for fuel project sanctioned by World Bank was started in which over 40 sq km area and over 40 villages were involved in growing the Jatropha on the fences of their farmlands. It was unique experience but one should not forget Jatropha is not a miracle plants and it needed good soil , water, fertilizers and care that other plants need . Hence it success depended on soil quality and water availability . In one farm where he grew improved variety Jatropha instead of wheat and yields were good the dispute arose in the family that same field would yield more for wheat per annum than for Jatropha and elders removed the plants. So did the other farmers who raised it on sandy soil and without irrigation. The lack of experience was obvious on the part of scientists as well as farmers as both were new to the field conditions. However lessons were learned hard way and it was agreed that don’t grow Jatropha as a crop on a land suitable for wheat cultivation nor grow on the lands which are poor in soil nutrition humus and water availability but Jatropha can be grown on the fences for fuel as was the original idea of Mrs Annie Marie.

Dr Sudhir Varma Director of SCM SPRI inspired by Shri Charan Mathur and enthusiastic efforts of a team of dedicated workers where I was technical advisor arrived at the conclusion that drudgery of the Indian Women living in villages could be overcome with reducing her dependence on wood fuel and more on biofuel obtained from the non renewable oil seeds which may include Jatropha and Pongamia or what ever seed oil available and improved model of stove could solve the problem of indoor pollution where a women cooking in poor quality fireplace inhales more smoke than a smoker of 10 packs of cigarettes per day and her children have the same dose starting from their childhood. Soon UNDP came to help out and a project has been initiated where with the involvement of different Women development programmers an awareness about indoor pollution has to be generated and fossil fuel and wood fuel has to be replaced by locally grown biofuel and using improved fire places indoor pollution shall be reduced and drudgery of the women on one hand and destruction of forests on the other hand shall be mitigated.

Let our progeny not ask the meaning of forest and see tigers only in museums as stuffed mummies. Time is running out and there is need to upscale our experiences at Global level with your participation.