Too many energy have-nots

July 27, 2015

Recently, the Centre made a request of sorts. It asked well-off people to give up the subsidy on LPG gas. A web piece notes that some ministers have renounced the subsidy. The government’s exhortation precipitated angry reactions amongst a section of people on social media. Messages asking MPs to give up the various subsidies they get abound on social media sites.
The reactions are a symptom of the passion with which people regard their cooking fuel, LPG.
PC Maithani and Deepak Gupta’s book, Achieving Universal Energy Access in India; Challenges and the Way Forward, deals with sources of energy which are part of our daily lives — and which many among the middle and well-off classes take for granted. Cooking fuel is among its areas of analysis — including the contentious issue of subsidies. It also deals with access to electricity, and the challenges and potential of renewable energy.
Looking at energy access
In recent times, and particularly with the NDA government at the Centre, there has been much emphasis on creating energy utilities to tap into various energy sources. The government has programmes devoted to conventional thermal power, nuclear power, hydropower, it has also stressed on renewables such as solar and wind. Energy security is important and the government’s programmes have received both laurels and criticism — justifiably so. But an important issue has gone a-begging. Creating utilities to tap into energy sources is not the same as providing energy access. Therein lies the significance of Maithani and Gupta’s work. They attempt to direct our attention to energy access.
The authors bring their long experience in the government to this endeavour. They show how government targets are rarely well thought out and at times end up compounding problems and creating more inequities.
They begin by highlighting the importance of energy access. They show that energy deprivation constitutes a significant barrier to human development. They cite data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) to emphasise that the “impact of energy on educational and health attainment may be even greater than income alleviation”. They also set the tone for the book with another significant point: though a percentage of the urban population is deprived of modern sources of energy, access to energy is primarily a rural issue.
The rural angle
The authors link energy poverty with poverty itself. Around 42 per cent of the rural population is energy-poor, they say. They also show that some of the poorer States in are energy-poor. “For poorer populations, having electricity connections and paying connection charges, and more importantly electricity bills along with fixed charges for erratic power supply, are considered key barriers,” Maithani and Gupta argue. To underscore the importance of energy access vis-à-vis energy supply, the authors argue for disaggregating data to the household level. “Most villages have been electrified, does not mean most households have been electrified. In 2011, with most of 91 per cent villages electrified 68 per cent of the BPL household connections was met, but overall household electrification went up only from 43 per cent to 56 per cent,” write Maithani and Gupta.
The link with poverty and lack of energy access comes across even more sharply in the chapter on cooking fuels. “The high moisture content of the biomass resources and the low efficiency of the combustion process produce a lot of smoke and emit large amounts of particulate matter, which causes high level of indoor air pollution in small and poorly ventilated kitchens.” Needless to say, such hearths breed health problems, and women and young children who spend time near kitchen are the most affected.
Maithani and Gupta also suggest ways forward. The problem with most energy policies in the country, they argue, is the centralised one-size-fits-all approach. While it goes without saying that the Centre must have a vision for energy access, the real action should lie in the areas where these programmes have to be executed. Programmes must be tweaked, altered and even thought afresh to cater to the idiosyncrasies of the people they target and the specificities of the regions they are aimed at. Maithani and Gupta argue for a decentralised approach to energy access.
Where it works
Decentralisation today is an oft-used — and much abused — term. The authors try to show where government programmes have worked. Among the successful examples they highlight is the franchise system in Assam. Distribution transformers are sold to franchisees in villages; they receive 15 per cent of the billed amount as remuneration. Franchises employ local people, who have improved billing and revenue operations. There are also improvements in attending to faults and undertaking repairs in the electricity network.
In a similar vein, Maithani and Gupta talk of China’s improved cook stoves programme. Decentralised administration, a commercial strategy that provided subsidies to rural energy development, and quality control through central production of critical systems contributed to the programme’s success. Close association with stove retailers and cooperation with customers played a vital role in designing the stoves. This is the reviewer’s only grouse with the book. The examples are too brief and too few. But this is a minor complaint.
As India grows economically, the fallacy of the trickle-down growth theory will be exposed. Economists and sociologists have pointed this out for several sectors. It’s to the credit of Maithani and Gupta for showing that the trickle-down theory does not work in the realm of energy access.
The reviewer is an editor with The Economic and Political Weekly
(This article was published on July 26, 2015 in The Hindu Business Line)