Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/679

 INDIAN FUEL PROBLEM new houses every ll per cent (! the n a town will require Rural  demand fuel.. year. Of the present proportions now 661 buildings, hold) w11 be urban and 89 n rural areas. An average house n 140,000 bricks, i.e., 70 tons of for housing which is eight times as great may be put roughly at twice the' urban demand, so far as bricks are concerned. The total annual extra demand for firewood on aocouut of brick- kilns, for prgvate buildings alone, will thus come up to fifty-six lakhs of tons. There still remain new public buildings to be considered, and the improve- ments to existing buildings consequen on the Hse in the standards of comfort. On the other hand, building stone has to be regarded as in part a set- off to the demand for bricks. Nevertheless, all things considered, the annual demand for fuel under this head canndt well be below five million tons. The ohly other considerable users of wood-fuel are some of the factories and workshops, and when there is a coal shortage, the railways. In our railways the use of wood-fuel has practically vanished. The war brought about a revival of the use of firewood for running and lighting purposes, and the South Indian Railway, which has always used some wood-fuel, expended 109,288 tons of t n 1917-1918, to figures obtained from ts Locomotive Superintendent. In v'ew of the lower of firewood as compared to ordinary coal to each other as 1 to 2 roughly) and forms, the continued use of firewood n any extensive quantities need not be looked especially f coal s available, supersedes the use of sold fuel. according and Carriage caloHfic power (which stand the ash t suggested by the Industrial Commission, on a large scale n the future, of producer-gas-engines, n which the gas s generated by charcoal, wood, coke or coal, for on our railway% or the use of oil The ntroducton, as