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The Indian leather industry contributes to economic growth at a significant environmental cost. Due to the rising global demand for sustainable leather products, promoting efficient input utilisation has become vital. This study measures input efficiency and its determinants for leather industry in order for it to improve its future performance.

In the first stage, bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is used for measuring efficiency and analysing firms' differences based on their geographical location, organisational structures, urban-rural location and sub-industrial groups. A second stage regression examines efficiency determinants using size, age, skill and capital-labour intensity as the explanatory variables.

Efficiency result shows a significant potential of minimising inputs by 47% provided the firms adopt best practices. West Bengal firms, urban located firms, individual and proprietorship owned firms and leather consumer goods firms are found to be relatively efficient to their counterparts. Size, skilled managerial staff and labour-intensive firms positively affect efficiency.

Construction of well-connected roads for accessing urban retail markets and provision of reliable electricity would improve efficiency of rural firms. Small-scale enterprises have a larger share in Indian leather industry; therefore, policy should focus on enhancing the firms' scale and investing in training facilities to skill employed labour for ensuring optimal use of inputs.

Previous studies on the leather industry have used the conventional DEA efficiency measurement approach. This study uses DEA bootstrapping model for robust efficiency estimates and provides consistent inferences about the determinants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of biogas in India for energy conservation and its potential in emission reduction through proper manure management and utilizing the tappable droppings while replacing the conventional and non-conventional fuel.

The authors have looked at the production, use and tappability of animal excreta for possible biogas generation and reduction in fuelwood consumption on one hand and emission reduction across the Indian states on the other. The average percentage of Biogas potential is created in the GIS database for analyzing the data set in the spatial domain using ArcGIS 9.2 software.

The paper examines that unused manure contributes to the greenhouse gas (GHG) and has huge potential of reducing the emission through proper utilization across the Indian states. Keeping current climate change dilemma in view this could be one of the feasible options to cope with the climate change and mitigating the threats.

A comprehensive data regarding methane emission from various sources is not readily available so far. With the help of this research work the authentic data has been collected from different government departments’ data banks and past research work. However, the authors have limited to few conversion aspects in quantifying the emission factor due to complexity of the various data sets.

Looking at the availability of usable animal excreta in different climatic regions, the attempt has been made in demarcating economically viable and technically feasible areas for biogas generation in India. An environmental and economic cost benefit analysis for adopting this renewable energy source has also been incorporated within this research.

The paper examined the GHG contribution of unused manure and the possibility of reducing it through proper utilization. The adverse environmental consequences of the use of conventional and non-conventional cooking fuels have also been analyzed in terms of GHG emissions. The same was assessed for the whole lifecycle of liquefied petroleum gas, which is commonly assumed as a clean fuel.