WEC - IMC WEC-IMC STUDY

The spectacular growth of electricity generation since independence has not still been able to fully meet the demand of India’s vast population, especially in the villages. The energy poverty is a significant cause for socio-economic backwardness of a large rural majority resulting in drudgery of women and children, impediment in the education and lack of opportunities for earning. In a nutshell, the majority of rural population is left behind to live a very poor quality of life.

There are several barriers to rural Energy Access including unsustained initiatives, ineffective targeting of subsidies, affordability, geographical dispersion, availability of ready to use technologies, lack of financial resources, inadequate focus on use of local/renewable resources etc.

The Govt. has taken several initiatives. While a few of the schemes have not been very effective and hence stopped, the impact of the other schemes as well as their potential in alleviating energy poverty needs to be comprehensively and critically evaluated. The study has been done from the perspective of the long term sustainability of the projects on grounds of techno-managerial issues, funds constraints during operation phase, equipment reliability, after-sale service, stake holders and organizational issues etc.

This report entitled “Initiatives on Sustainable Energy Access – Rural & Renewable Energy” is an attempt to comprehensively understand and analyze energy poverty and the efforts needed to facilitate inclusive growth of the energy sector. The approach is a three step process; (i) analyzing as to where we presently stand, (ii) to formulate a vision as to where we should aim to reach and (iii) how we can accomplish this vision.