Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Electricity – Survey of States 2018

Sector:Clean Power Undertaken By: Council on Energy, Environment and Water Recent Publication:2018

In 2014-15, Shakti supported the launch of an energy access survey, 'Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Electricity - Survey of States', for six major Indian states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal. The framework used for the survey framework that was inspired by the multi-tier framework (MTF) proposed by the World Bank and Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) in 2014. It lends itself to the evaluation of energy access as a multidimensional, multi-tier issue, going beyond unidimensional and binary definitions. The findings of the survey showed that between 65 per cent and 97 per cent of rural households in the six states were in the bottom two tiers in terms of electricity access; in terms of cooking energy, between 91 per cent and 97 per cent of the households surveyed were in the bottom two tiers. The report also highlighted the need to look beyond connections and consider the role of affordability and supply-side bottlenecks in order to improve access to energy.

The report, as well as the underlying data, were used between 2015 and 2018 to provide tailored recommendations to address the barriers that specific areas or regions experienced. In the intervening years since the first round of ACCESS, the government—both at the central and state level—has made efforts to close the energy gap. These include a rejuvenated village electrification scheme, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, the ambitious Saubhagya scheme and the and the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), amongst others. After a gap of more than three years, this current study, ACCESS 2018, revisits the same 9,000-odd households surveyed earlier. This second round was undertaken in order to take stock of the current situation on the ground and to assess the effectiveness of these government interventions in improving energy access among rural households in some of the poorest states of India.