ANNOUNCEMENTS
One of the key drivers of socio-economic development of a country is it’s access to reliable and constant supply of electricity. With the aggressive implementation of Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana(Subhagya) Scheme, since September 2017, 26.3 million households were given grid-electricity connections at subsidised rates or free of cost(Ministry of Power,2020). But, there are around 3.2 lakh households which are remain un-electrified till August 2020. These un-electrified households are in Chattisgarh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand(Parliamentary reply in Lok Sabha, 2020).
North – Eastern region is underdeveloped as compared to the other parts of the country. The North – Eastern areas remained isolated and inacessisble to the world, due to its inhospitable physical conditions. The situation of the area become worse after India got it’s Independence as most roadways and rail from Bengal were shut down. The residents till now are facing issues of inadequate infrastructure (Das, 2013). Kerosene which is used as a lighting fuel has poor conversion efficiency which leads to poor quality lighting. As kerosene has a higher cost with limited supply, the villagers shift to other inefficient lighting devices like candles, fire – torch, which are common in nature but usage of these devices cause air pollution which causes serious health issues in women and children.
Access to electricity can be supplied through small decentralized renewable energy systems which are situated an off-grid mode which are connected to central grid during the time of erratic electricity supply. These DREs could help in bridging the gap of access to electricity to the rural settlements where there is no supply of electricity in the near future or where there is an erratic supply of electricity from the existing grid. Before setting up a DRE system in an area a proper research and analysis is fundamental.
The NE region has abundance of natural resources which are in the form of biomass, hydro, solar and mineral resources. Assam is the largest state in North eastern region of India. It covers various kinds of ecosystem, and is more representative of rest of the north east region of India. It has large market connectivity, Guwahati which is the central prime region. This study comprises the analysis of overview of energy landscape in Assam, to get the real picture of energy security in the region. Further, it goes with analysis of policy, stakeholder and financial nuances of the decentralized renewable energy sector.
