Social impact assessment of lighting a billion lives initiative
Student name: Ms Isha Dash and Mr Saurabh Bhajibhakare
Guide: Dr Mala Narang Reddy
Year of completion: 2012
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: It has been five years since TERI launched its campaign Lighting a Billion Lives, an
attempt to bring a clean source of light to the deep interiors of rural India to replace
kerosene lamps and paraffin candles. Around four years have passed since and the
project has been implemented in more than 850 villages, yet there has been no
comprehensive in depth study to assess the impact of this initiative on the rural lives.
This project was aimed towards the objective of assessing the social impact of LaBL
in four villages of Madhya Pradesh. The fee for service business model developed
for TERI„s LaBL was intended to be self-sustainable, such that there is no external
input required for the functioning of the project in the future. The sustainability of
the business model was also studied in the selected sample villages in this project.
The results and observations of the study have revealed that though the model has
evolved to become stronger over the years, some issues need to be solved to bring in
the social transformation this project is capable of.
