Air pollution kills more Indians than any other risk factor with estimates ranging from 15 to 20 lakh premature deaths annually. Although outdoor air pollution garners most public attention, it is well-known in health circles that pollution from chulhas is about half of the problem because people in households are directly exposed to such pollution. It is less well-understood, however, that the two are linked: One of the reasons India has such bad outdoor air pollution is that nearly 200 million households are still burning biomass every day for cooking. Solving the household dirty fuel problem will also help reduce the outdoor air problem, although not solve it on its own. Although reducing outdoor air pollution remains difficult for Indian policymakers given the multiplicity of sources involved, the country is making major strides in addressing household air pollution. First with the Give it Up scheme and now with the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) programme, the Ministry of ...