Punita Devi Yadav from Laxmaniya, Dhanusha district of Madhesh Pradesh is very satisfied with the use of her electric induction cookstove. She has saved money and time for cooking and cleaning utensils after she started cooking in the induction cookstove.

For Punita Devi, cooking is an important part of her family activities. Using cow dung cakes as fuel used to cause a lot of smoke, which irritated her eyes and affected her throat. Making the dung cakes was also time consuming and messy. Using LPG was a big improvement, but its increasing cost and scarcity from time to time, also caused headache in the family. So, when Mithila Microfinance came with an attractive credit scheme for households to buy electric cookstoves, her family jumped to the idea and bought an electric induction stove. She hopes that they can improve the electric wiring in the house so that she can better use her stove.

The electric induction cookstove was provided to Punita Devi by Mithila Laghubitta Sanstha though a project funded by the Sustainable Energy Challenge Fund (SECF). SECF is a challenge fund mechanism promoted by the Government of Nepal through Alternative Energy Promotion Centre with technical assistance from Nepal Renewable Energy Programme and financial support from the British Embassy in Kathmandu. SECF provides financial support to projects which are marginally viable and has greater social impact to make them commercially viable.