Quality of Life Energy Environment
Ph.D. Thesis D Dhanapal
Geo Resource Centre
Ph.D. Thesis D Dhanapal
Geo Resource Centre
Preface
Ph.D. ThesisD. Dhanapal (1993): Quality of Life, Pattern of Energy Use and Environment in the Rural Areas of Namakkal Taluk, Tamil Nadu, Unpublished Ph.D.Thesis. (Madras: Dept. of Geography, University of Madras): 303 pages. Ph. D. Awarded in 1994.
PREFACE
Energy has been an important factor all along and it has become a critical factor currently because of the alarming rate of use and demand for it. Its rate of use is closely related to the standard of living, life-style and quality of life of the population, the nature and level of economic development, and spatial interaction. The population pressure forces to produce and consume more energy. The ever-increasing production and consumption of energy seems to have definite implications on environment, ecology and natural resources. In India, the population pressure is heavy and has been growing rapidly. Urbanisation has been rapid and widespread. Various development schemes such as Integrated Rural Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Development Programme and Whole Village Development Programmes have been implemented to improve the quality of lives of people and standard of living of the people especially in rural areas of India. Besides, efforts are being made for getting a 100 percent rural electrification. All these developmental schemes along with population pressure create a heavy demand for energy and obviously bring about marked changes in the pattern of energy consumption over space and time. These changes and variations in energy demand in turn have certain implications on natural resources and environment.
The changes in the energy consumption patter may be due to the changes in the levels of quality of life. The quality of life may change over a time due to the developmental processes initiated by different agencies or / and by the personal efforts of individuals. The level of quality of life and energy consumption vary with space, time and societal positions. For instance, a low caste and landless agricultural labour group having a lower level of quality of life may be consuming less energy. Thus it appears that an understanding on the quality of life, energy demands and consumption and environmental implications is essential for making policy decisions and planning programmes.
The concept of quality of life has drawn the attention of researchers and planners all over the world. There have been plethoras of studies on energy, environment and quality of life. However, these studies seem to have paid a little attention to study the linkages among these three aspects. For instance, linkages are to be measured in crucial questions like how much energy is required when a group of people having lower level of quality of life moves up to higher level of quality of life. The present study tries to answer such questions of linkages. While conducting the study, care has been taken to follow the methods used for energy surveys for implementing Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme (IREP). So, the result of this study may also be some direct use to the energy planners who are interested in implementing IREP. Also, this study will be of some use for researchers and policy makers – both politicians and bureaucrats – who quite often think of improving quality of life.
By: D. DHANAPAL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my thanks to
-Dr. S. Subbiah, Reader, Department of Geography, University of Madras for giving freedom to choose Ph.D. topic of my interest, supervising the research work and correcting the thesis.
-Dr. A. Ramesh, Professor and Head, Department of Geography, University of Madras for providing necessary infra-structural facilities to carry out the thesis work and giving useful comments.
-Dr. N. Sivagnanam for giving valuable suggestions to strengthen the interpretation part of the factor analysis.
-Dr. (Mrs.) Vasantha Vishwanath for going through the script and giving suggestions; Dr. P.S. Tiwari and Dr. T. Vasanthakumaran for their moral support.
-Mr. K. Rajendran for his devoted attention and painstaking efforts to do the computer data processing and computer graphics.
- Mr. R. Rajamohan for teaching me rural energy survey and planning methods and for helping me to attend the national training course on Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme.
- Dr. A. Kalanidhi and Dr. A.N.Rao for giving permission to undergo the national Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme.
- Mr. S. Natarajan for helping me to apply and interpret statistical analysis. Dr. Suresh Chandra for giving suggestions to take suitable class intervals for factor scores. Mr. K. R. Shanmugam for explaining certain points about population projection techniques.
- Dr. Vasudevan for giving useful comments on the interview schedule and explaining certain points about energy conservation.
- Dr. T. R. Jagadeesan, Dr. R. Natarajan and Dr. P. Subramanian for their valuable suggestions and encouragement.
- Prof. C.S. Narasimhan for constantly encouraging me to complete the Ph.D. work.
- Dr. M. Sundararajan for helping me to find out the botanical names of the fuel-wood trees, crop residues and green manures.
- Mr. A. Balasubramanian for extending his kind co-operation for conducting survey in Mohanur block.
- Mr. A. Chakravarthi for helping me in various stages of this thesis work.
- Dr. N. Murugesan and Mr. R. Gunasekaran for sharing their ideas while preparing the Ph.D. research proposal to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
- Dr. K. Rajaratnam for allowing me to use the library of Centre for New International Economic Order and for providing literature on quality of life.
- Dr. C.V. Seshadri for permitting me to use the library of Murugappa Chettiar Research Institute.
- Dr. (Mrs.) J. Parikh, Dr. C.L. Gupta, Dr.R.C. Maheshwari and Dr. R.K. Bose for providing the reprints of their literature on energy and environment.
- Mr. R. Palanivel, Mr. S. Mohana Sundaram, Mr. Sivaraj, Dr. K. Gunasekaran, Mr. S. Chandran, Mr. T.V.Balasundram, Dr. V. Hoon, Dr. Subhatra Prabhakaran, Dr. Hema, Mrs. R. Bhavani for giving / helping me to find out some useful articles related to the thesis.
-Mr. R. Ramanathan and P. Sivakumar for extending their co-operation to collect transportation and electricity data.
-Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, British Council Library, German Embassy, USIS and WHO (New Delhi) for providing photocopies of very useful articles and information.
- Texas Energy Extension Service, Texas A & M University (USA), UNESCO (France), Surrey Energy Economics Centre, University of Surrey, Institute of Energy and University of Sussex (UK), UNEP (Kenya), UNU (Japan), Norwegian Church and The Chr. Aid and Michelsen Institute (Norway) and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) for sending valuable documents.
- Dr. Pyrde, Dr. Jones and Dr. Solomon (USA); Dr. Smil, Dr. Hopper and Mr. Andrew Barker (Canada); Dr. Manshard (Germany); Dr. Morgan, Dr. Hawdon and Dr. Pearson (UK); Dr. Arafa (Egypt); Dr. Hammer (Norway); Dr. Olof Nordstorm and Dr. Peterson (Sweden), and Dr. Bee (Singapore); Dr. Margaret Stuart (France) for sending necessary articles and documents.
- The officials of the Block Development Offices, Electricity Board Offices, Agricultural Departments n Sendhamangalam and Mohanur Blocks; and the officials of Namakkal Taluk office and ATC for their kind co-operation during the data collection.
- Mr. B. Elango for showing a great deal of professional skill in doing the word processing for this thesis work.
- Mr. Yugendra for neatly executing the cartographic work.
- My family members and relatives for their sacrifices, encouragement and co-operation to complete this work.
- The respondents who patiently provided all the necessary information.
- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi for granting financial assistance to carry out the Ph.D. thesis work.
D. DHANAPAL
PREFACE
Energy has been an important factor all along and it has become a critical factor currently because of the alarming rate of use and demand for it. Its rate of use is closely related to the standard of living, life-style and quality of life of the population, the nature and level of economic development, and spatial interaction. The population pressure forces to produce and consume more energy. The ever-increasing production and consumption of energy seems to have definite implications on environment, ecology and natural resources. In India, the population pressure is heavy and has been growing rapidly. Urbanisation has been rapid and widespread. Various development schemes such as Integrated Rural Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Development Programme and Whole Village Development Programmes have been implemented to improve the quality of lives of people and standard of living of the people especially in rural areas of India. Besides, efforts are being made for getting a 100 percent rural electrification. All these developmental schemes along with population pressure create a heavy demand for energy and obviously bring about marked changes in the pattern of energy consumption over space and time. These changes and variations in energy demand in turn have certain implications on natural resources and environment.
The changes in the energy consumption patter may be due to the changes in the levels of quality of life. The quality of life may change over a time due to the developmental processes initiated by different agencies or / and by the personal efforts of individuals. The level of quality of life and energy consumption vary with space, time and societal positions. For instance, a low caste and landless agricultural labour group having a lower level of quality of life may be consuming less energy. Thus it appears that an understanding on the quality of life, energy demands and consumption and environmental implications is essential for making policy decisions and planning programmes.
The concept of quality of life has drawn the attention of researchers and planners all over the world. There have been plethoras of studies on energy, environment and quality of life. However, these studies seem to have paid a little attention to study the linkages among these three aspects. For instance, linkages are to be measured in crucial questions like how much energy is required when a group of people having lower level of quality of life moves up to higher level of quality of life. The present study tries to answer such questions of linkages. While conducting the study, care has been taken to follow the methods used for energy surveys for implementing Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme (IREP). So, the result of this study may also be some direct use to the energy planners who are interested in implementing IREP. Also, this study will be of some use for researchers and policy makers – both politicians and bureaucrats – who quite often think of improving quality of life.
By: D. DHANAPAL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my thanks to
-Dr. S. Subbiah, Reader, Department of Geography, University of Madras for giving freedom to choose Ph.D. topic of my interest, supervising the research work and correcting the thesis.
-Dr. A. Ramesh, Professor and Head, Department of Geography, University of Madras for providing necessary infra-structural facilities to carry out the thesis work and giving useful comments.
-Dr. N. Sivagnanam for giving valuable suggestions to strengthen the interpretation part of the factor analysis.
-Dr. (Mrs.) Vasantha Vishwanath for going through the script and giving suggestions; Dr. P.S. Tiwari and Dr. T. Vasanthakumaran for their moral support.
-Mr. K. Rajendran for his devoted attention and painstaking efforts to do the computer data processing and computer graphics.
- Mr. R. Rajamohan for teaching me rural energy survey and planning methods and for helping me to attend the national training course on Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme.
- Dr. A. Kalanidhi and Dr. A.N.Rao for giving permission to undergo the national Integrated Rural Energy Planning Programme.
- Mr. S. Natarajan for helping me to apply and interpret statistical analysis. Dr. Suresh Chandra for giving suggestions to take suitable class intervals for factor scores. Mr. K. R. Shanmugam for explaining certain points about population projection techniques.
- Dr. Vasudevan for giving useful comments on the interview schedule and explaining certain points about energy conservation.
- Dr. T. R. Jagadeesan, Dr. R. Natarajan and Dr. P. Subramanian for their valuable suggestions and encouragement.
- Prof. C.S. Narasimhan for constantly encouraging me to complete the Ph.D. work.
- Dr. M. Sundararajan for helping me to find out the botanical names of the fuel-wood trees, crop residues and green manures.
- Mr. A. Balasubramanian for extending his kind co-operation for conducting survey in Mohanur block.
- Mr. A. Chakravarthi for helping me in various stages of this thesis work.
- Dr. N. Murugesan and Mr. R. Gunasekaran for sharing their ideas while preparing the Ph.D. research proposal to Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
- Dr. K. Rajaratnam for allowing me to use the library of Centre for New International Economic Order and for providing literature on quality of life.
- Dr. C.V. Seshadri for permitting me to use the library of Murugappa Chettiar Research Institute.
- Dr. (Mrs.) J. Parikh, Dr. C.L. Gupta, Dr.R.C. Maheshwari and Dr. R.K. Bose for providing the reprints of their literature on energy and environment.
- Mr. R. Palanivel, Mr. S. Mohana Sundaram, Mr. Sivaraj, Dr. K. Gunasekaran, Mr. S. Chandran, Mr. T.V.Balasundram, Dr. V. Hoon, Dr. Subhatra Prabhakaran, Dr. Hema, Mrs. R. Bhavani for giving / helping me to find out some useful articles related to the thesis.
-Mr. R. Ramanathan and P. Sivakumar for extending their co-operation to collect transportation and electricity data.
-Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, British Council Library, German Embassy, USIS and WHO (New Delhi) for providing photocopies of very useful articles and information.
- Texas Energy Extension Service, Texas A & M University (USA), UNESCO (France), Surrey Energy Economics Centre, University of Surrey, Institute of Energy and University of Sussex (UK), UNEP (Kenya), UNU (Japan), Norwegian Church and The Chr. Aid and Michelsen Institute (Norway) and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) for sending valuable documents.
- Dr. Pyrde, Dr. Jones and Dr. Solomon (USA); Dr. Smil, Dr. Hopper and Mr. Andrew Barker (Canada); Dr. Manshard (Germany); Dr. Morgan, Dr. Hawdon and Dr. Pearson (UK); Dr. Arafa (Egypt); Dr. Hammer (Norway); Dr. Olof Nordstorm and Dr. Peterson (Sweden), and Dr. Bee (Singapore); Dr. Margaret Stuart (France) for sending necessary articles and documents.
- The officials of the Block Development Offices, Electricity Board Offices, Agricultural Departments n Sendhamangalam and Mohanur Blocks; and the officials of Namakkal Taluk office and ATC for their kind co-operation during the data collection.
- Mr. B. Elango for showing a great deal of professional skill in doing the word processing for this thesis work.
- Mr. Yugendra for neatly executing the cartographic work.
- My family members and relatives for their sacrifices, encouragement and co-operation to complete this work.
- The respondents who patiently provided all the necessary information.
- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi for granting financial assistance to carry out the Ph.D. thesis work.
D. DHANAPAL
