ANNOUNCEMENTS
India is trapped in power poverty, which is a big hindrance to sustainable development and has a great impact on millions of households. The investigation that supports this seeks to identify the effect of energy poverty on human development in six states across India, which is:
Uttar Pradesh; Bihar; Jharkhand; West Bengal; Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. This research aims at quantifying the impacts of better access to electricity on health, education, income and women’s empowerment, investigating factors influencing clean cooking fuel adoption, explaining demographic inequalities in clean cooking fuel adoption among others as well as unraveling the dialectic between electricity poverty and human development.
This study uses mixed-methods approach that combines both qualitative and quantitative data collected from secondary sources such as India Residential Energy Survey (IRES), Electricity and Clean Cooking Survey (ECCS) and National Family Health Survey (NFHS). A new Energy Poverty Index (EPI) was created using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to capture the multi-dimensionality of energy poverty. Then econometric regression model is used to determine the relationship between EPI and Human Development Index (HDI) for these states.
The results indicate that there are beneficial impacts brought about by electric power improvement on health conditions, schooling, money making activities as well as women’s empowerment. Substantial socioeconomic differences in the use of natural fuel for cooking are also highlighted by the study, with economically disadvantaged individuals frequently falling behind. The results of the regression analysis show a substantial inverse association, with varied degrees of strength, between human development and energy poverty.
This research adds to the increasing amount of literature on energy poverty and human development through providing a thorough, state-by-state examination of the problem in India. The results highlight the necessity of focused, situation-specific interventions that tackle the multifaceted aspect of energy poverty and advance fair access to sustainable energy. The study has significant policy ramifications since it highlights how crucial it is to combine energy access programmes with more general aims of human development in order to accomplish sustainable development.
Keywords: Access to power, clean cooking fuels, human development, and energy poverty
