The Status of Rural Energy Access in India: A Synthesis

INTRODUCTION

India's energy crisis is defined by the fact that the major share of its rural population is energy poor. Energy poverty, indicated by the lack of access to modern energy services, is a direct outcome of income poverty. The poor cannot afford to pay for the services of the modern energy carriers and they live in sub-standard buildings/houses, which are unfit to be connected to the modern energy systems. Similarly, any poor nation will be constrained by inadequate access to both energy and financial resources, and therefore will be unable to build an adequate infrastructure that would facilitate connectivity to modern energy carriers. Thus, "un-affordability" due to poverty and "inaccessibility" due to inadequate infrastructure are the root causes of the lack of access to modern energy. This lack of energy access has major implications for economic development, livelihoods, social dignity, and environmental sustainability, while access to energy has strong links with poverty reduction through income, health, education, gender, and the environment (Saghir, 2005). It is a vicious cycle of linked events, one leading to another and finally getting back to the original positions of "poor individual" and "poor country." The United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) millennium development goals (MDGs) reflect the desires of the suffering humanity. Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to state that expanding energy access is at the core of achieving MDGs. Many of the stakeholders, including national governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have recognized these linkages as well as the need for expanding energy access. However, both experience and research suggest that the gap between the recognition of the need for expanding energy access and the action toward achieving energy access for all is very wide and ever expanding. The issues of energy access are only treated superficially in national and international development plans (UNDP, 2007). Partially, this is because energy governance is always biased towards "supply-side" and suggested solutions always revolve around "hardware" aspects. The "demand-side" aspects of energy have always been neglected. Energy service for sustainable development has never been the focus of energy planning. The focus of the energy sector is usually on expanding electricity generation and oil refinery capacities, on transmission and distribution lines, and on maintaining a steady supply of fossil fuels.

India is facing a formidable challenge as it works to ensure the availability of a reliable source of modern energy carriers to the large majority of its predominantly rural, population. The findings of the National Sample Survey (NSSO, 2007) indicate that although 74% of the Indian villages were electrified as of 2005; only 54.9% of the households had access to electricity and the remaining depended on kerosene lamps for lighting. With respect to access to modern fuels for cooking, in 2005, only 9% of the rural households had access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and about 84% were still depending on biomass for their cooking energy needs, with only 1.3% having access to kerosene. Thus, bridging the access gap in modern energy services for cooking and lighting is a major challenge for India. However, before the government can address this challenge, it is essential that it gain a deeper insight into the prevailing status of energy access in India. This knowledge will enable the design of targeted policies, programs, and institutional mechanisms. Keeping this in mind, in the present paper, we have presented a detailed analysis of the temporal and regional dynamics of rural energy access situation in India.