Researchers at IIT Mandi in collaboration with Institut INRS of France and National Physical Laboratory of India have conducted a comprehensive study on the harmful effects of air pollution caused by cooking methods using traditional fuels in rural kitchens in three states of North-East India.  .  A research team from IIT Mandi, including PhD researcher Bijay Sharma and Dr Sayantan Sarkar, assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and their colleagues have conducted this study in a series of three research papers.

People in India's north-eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh are at risk of respiratory, cancer and lung diseases and this risk is 57 times higher than that due to LPG.  This has been revealed by the researchers of IIT Mandi.  According to the team, the risk of diseases is increasing due to the impact of biomass fuel in the North-Eastern states and this danger is inviting fatal diseases very fast.  The team also discovered that 50 percent of the population in these states is still dependent on traditional fuels, leading to high concentrations of harmful aerosols in homes, directly affecting our respiration