Abstract

This paper has attempted to study energy consumption pattern of rural household activities of Ahmedabad district in Gujarat. In all, 82 families from 20 villages were surveyed, Cooking consumed maximum energy 81.25 to 83.90% followed by lighting 12.13 to 15.0% and the lowest energy input recorded was 2.53 to 4.02% in the miscellaneous domestic activities of the total energy input in rural houses. The pattern of total energy consumption in different categories of the rural households was 42.9, 45.4, 46.4, 56.7, 46.4 and 49.7 GJ/year/household for landless (agricultural labours), marginal farmers, small farmers, medium farmers, large farmers and artisan, job doers and others respectively. The average contribution of non-commercial, commercial and human energy sources for different household activities accounted for 90.46, 5.47 and 4.05% of the total energy input respectively.

Key words: Energy consumption, rural households, energy sources.