Clean fuel use, Political representation and Forest cover: Evidence from Rural India

This paper examines how political representation for marginalized groups affects development outcomes and environmental choices by studying the adoption of clean cooking fuels under India's Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY). Focusing on political reservations for Scheduled Tribes (STs), we assess how these institutional arrangements influence household fuel use across ecologically diverse regions. Using village-level data from the 2020 Mission Antyodaya Survey and high-resolution forest cover data, we employ a spatial regression discontinuity design (SRD) to compare LPG adoption between Scheduled Areas (administratively designated tribal-majority regions) and non-Scheduled Areas. We find that ST political reservations at the assembly constituency level are associated with a significant reduction in PMUY uptake in Scheduled Areas. To explore variation within SAs, we employ Propensity Score Matching to assess the impact of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA), which mandates ST representation in local governance. We find that PESA increases LPG adoption in villages located in open forest and scrubland, while it reduces uptake in regions with moderately dense forests. Additionally, our analysis reveals that higher forest cover displaces clean fuel use, and quantile regressions confirm that PESA implementation is linked to forest gains-suggesting that politically empowered ST leaders may promote conservation, inadvertently reinforcing biomass dependence. Our findings highlight a policy trade-off between environmental stewardship and the clean energy transition in ecologically sensitive tribal areas.