Energy access problem of the poor in India: Is rural electrification a remedy?IntroductionEnergy access problem in IndiaIndiaaposs position in the worldSituation in IndiaEnergy used for cooking purposesEnergy used for lighting purposes9Schemes for providing electricity access to the poorExisting mechanism for providing electricity accessRecent programmes for enhancing electricity accessChanges in the legal environment post-electricity act 2003New village-electrification programmeCan rural electrification resolve energy access problem?ConclusionReferencesEnergy Policy 34 (2006) 3387–3397ViewpointEnergy access problem of the poor in India: Is ruralelectrification a remedy?Subhes C. BhattacharyyaCentre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UKAvailable online 12 October 2005AbstractIndia accounts for a third of the world’s population without access to electricity and about 40% of those without access to modernenergy. Such a situation exists despite several initiatives and policies to support poor households. Alarmed by the gravity of the situation,the government has recently announced an ambitious programme of rural electrification. This paper looks into the energy accesssituation of India and argues that rural electrification alone is unlikely to resolve the energy access problem because of low penetration ofelectricity in the energy mix of the poor.r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Keywords: Access; Rural electrification; Alternative strategy1. IntroductionThe critical role played by energy in achieving sustain-able development is now well recognised and the extremeform of disparity existing in the world in terms ofproduction, consumption and access of energy is consid-ered as a major concern. This has been highlighted in therecent past by the UN and other world bodies (asevidenced from WEC (2001) and WEC (2000), DfID(2002), and IEA (2002)), and received global attention atthe Johannesburg Summit in 2002. Access to energy hasbeen identified as a major challenge and there appears to bea consensus that ‘provision of affordable, reliable, andsocially acceptable energy services’ is a prerequisite forachieving the Millennium Development Goals (WEHAB,2002).A high concentration of population without access toenergy is found in India, where the largest number ofpeople in any country in the world without adequateenergy access lives.1Yet, little is written on this issue in themainstream energy literature and forming a coherent viewof the present situation is often difficult. Parallel to theinternational focus on the issue, the subject howeverappears to have caught Indian politicians’ and policy-makers’ attention recently. The government aims toachieve village electrification by 2007 and householdelectrification by 2012. In April 2005, a programme hasbeen launched to implement the above objective. It isimportant to ask whether a drive for household electrifica-tion will be enough to address the energy access problem.The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensivepicture of the current energy access situation in India andto analyse whether an electricity-oriented programme isappropriate for the country. The paper is organised asfollows: Section 2 examines the Indian situation in detailand presents India’s comparative position in the globalscene; Section 3 analyses the present mechanisms pursuedin India for rural electrification and describes the newinitiative announced recently. Section 4 examines whetherARTICLE IN PRESSwww.elsevier.com/locate/enpol0301-4215/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2005.08.026Tel.: +44 1382 348876; fax: +44 1382 322578.E-mail addresses: [email protected],[email protected] have used the term ‘energy access’ to mean access to clean,affordable and reliable energy services. The term covers both urban and(footnote continued)rural areas and unless otherwise indicated, the term covers all forms ofenergies (including traditional energies), which meet the above qualifica-tion. The term has not been used to mean access to electricity orelectrification of rural areas.rural electrification can solve the energy access problemand finally, Section 5 presents the concluding remarks.2. Energy access problem in India2.1. India’s position in the worldThe most commonly cited figures on the lack of access toenergy indicate that there are about 2 billion peoplewithout adequate access to clean cooking energy and about1.7 billion people are without access to electricity (WEA,2000).2Information on access to electricity is somewhatbetter as detailed country-wise electricity access informa-tion can be found in IEA (2002). This source suggests thatabout 1.64 billion or 27% of the world’s population did nothave access to electricity in 2000 (see Table 1). It can beobserved that more than two-thirds of those lackingelectricity access are concentrated in 12 countries,3mostlylocated in South Asia and Africa. India alone accounts formore than 35% of the world’s population withoutelectricity access,4making it the largest contributor to theproblem in the world.IEA (2002) estimates that about 2.39 billion people usebiomass for cooking and heating purposes in the world (seeTable 2). India, China and Sub-Saharan Africa are themajor biomass dependent countries/regions in the world.India consumes around 200 Mtoe of biomass every year (oraround 22% of the world biomass demand). Sub-SaharanAfrica and China consume somewhat higher levels ofbiomass than India in absolute terms but China has a lowershare of biomass in the primary energy demand and in theresidential energy mix compared to India.2.2. Situation in IndiaTwo recent sources have provided a wealth of informa-tion regarding the overall energy access in India. The first isa report by the National Sample Survey Organisation(NSSO (2001a)) that provided detailed information onenergy used by Indian households. World Bank (2003) andPachauri and Sprend (2004) relied on this report for theiranalysis of access to clean fuel by the poor. The other isCensus, 2001,5which has generated a vast amount ofinformation on various aspects of the Indian population,including energy use. The presentation that follows relieson these sources and considers cooking and lighting needsseparately.2.2.1. Energy used for cooking purposesData from Census, 2001 indicates more than 139