The National Biomass Cookstove Programme (NBCP) is a national scheme formulated by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) to promote clean cooking solutions in India. It originated as the National Biomass Cookstoves Initiative (NBCI), which was launched on December 2, 2009, in New Delhi. The programme was created to solve the problem of inefficient biomass burning in traditional chulhas, which had an efficiency of barely 10% and caused significant household air pollution and drudgery, particularly for women. The NBCI was a successor to the earlier National Programme on Improved Chulhas (NPIC), which ran from 1984 to 2003.
The NBCP, formulated for the 12th Plan Period, works by disseminating improved biomass cookstoves for domestic and community use on a cost-sharing basis. These improved cookstoves are combustion devices designed to burn biomass fuel more efficiently, with modern models achieving thermal efficiency levels of 38% to 45%. A key mechanism is the quality control process: the MNRE strengthened three test centres for performance testing, and only cookstoves that satisfy the stipulated tests and are approved by the Ministry are considered for the demonstration programme. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) also published revised standards in August 2013 to support this.
The NBCP was subsequently replaced by the Unnat Chulha Abhiyan (UCA) Programme, a national programme launched in June 2014. The UCA continued the mission of promoting improved biomass cookstoves, with a target to disseminate 2.75 million improved cookstoves/chulhas in the remaining period of the 12th Plan.