Development of Improved Lanterns For Rural Areas
Anil K. Rajvanshi, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Phaltan, Maharashtra (India).
Around 60% of the rural households in India (60 million) use only hurricane kerosene lanterns for lighting. With unreliable electricity supply, even the remaining 40% of the households use kerosene lighting occasionally. There are guesstimates that close to 100 million such lanterns exist in the country.
The quality of light from the hurricane lantern is abysmal. It produces light from the glow of a yellow flame, which is equivalent to few candles and about one-tenth of that from a 60 W light bulb. There is another type of lantern called "Petromax" used in the country. This is a pressurized lantern where the incandescence of a rare earth mantle produces the light. Table 1 gives the comparison of these lighting devices.
A new efficient lantern running either on kerosene or diesel or with slight modifications on ethanol has been developed and tested. It has been christened "Noorie"