Energy Matters

Rural Electrification in India part 4: What is the Indian Gov't Doing?

What is the Indian national government doing now?

Ministry of Power

The Ministry of Power in India oversees “perspective planning, policy formulation, processing of projects for investment decision, monitoring of the implementation of power projects, training and manpower development and the administration and enactment of legislation in regard to thermal, hydro power generation, transmission and distribution” throughout the country (Ministry of Power). They also assist in funding and designing power programs like the RGGVY which is described below. The Ministry does not set its own goals, but rather it aims to meet the goals that are set for it through the central government. Generally, their main focus is on constructing power plants along the lines of 1 GW of capacity. These power plants are called “Mega Power Plants” and as of July 2009, the government has launched an “Ultra Mega Power Plant” project, consisting of plants of over 4 GW in capacity (Business-Standard). With these large scale power projects and the RGGVY, the Ministry of India will attempt to satisfy the 11^th five-year plan's goal of providing electricity access to every village by 2012.

Rural Electrification Corporation Limited

Involvement Goals and Summary

With a net worth of over $1 billion US, the Rural Electrification Corporation Limited is by far the most influential organization involved in rural electrification in India. The Rural Electrification Corporation Limited (38th Annual Report ) was incorporated in 1969 under the Companies Act of 1957 as a Government of India Public Sector Enterprise. As a state-owned corporation, it provides financial assistance to State Electricity Boards, State Government Departments and Rural Electric Cooperatives for rural electrification projects. Their stated mission and vision is “to facilitate availability of electricity for accelerated growth and for enrichment of quality of life of rural and semi-urban population,” (REC Corporate Profile). Their efforts should be judged in terms of how they meet their mission of increasing electricity access, but as their mission does not mention a dedication to improving the quality and regularity of electricity provided, they cannot be judged on that metric.

While the REC is a part of the Indian central government, they realize the value and need for competition to provide rural electrification and the multifaceted nature of the problem. Thus their second goal is “to act as a competitive, client-friendly and development-oriented organization for financing and promoting projects covering power generation, power conservation, power transmission and power distribution network in the country,” (REC Corporate Profile). REC seeks to accomplish its goals through providing loans to government entities and corporations so they may realize rural electrification projects.

From its central office in New Delhi, REC disburses its funds for loan assistance for rural electrification schemes that gets distributed through their various field units. The field units, known as Project Offices coordinate the programs that have received funding with the State Electricity Boards or State Power Utilities as well as assist them in designing rural electrification projects and then disburse the funds and oversee the implementation of the projects (REC Corporate Profile).

As REC has grown and matured, its focus has stayed the same but its actions have changed. Until May 2002, REC only financed micro generation projects, projects up to 25 MW capacity, but in June 2002 its mandate was expanded to include the financing of all generation projects without limit on size or location, as long as they still served rural and semi-urban populations (38th Annual Report). REC is organized so as not to pick technology winners or particular pet projects, but rather evaluate and approve funding for select, high quality project proposals that they receive from various state institutions. Because of this, REC finances all types of power generating projects, whether renewable energy based or non although they do have a separate division the focuses on loans for small hydro, biomass, wind energy, solar and co-generation power projects.

Critique of REC Projects

While REC has done an admirable job increasing rural electrification in India, it can be improved. As a major corporation, REC is expected to approve loans only for the rural electrification projects with the highest payback and possibility of success. This has enabled REC to grow substantially and continue to provide loans for worthy projects, but this has inevitably resulted in a lack of attention paid to suboptimal projects. This is an issue as these suboptimal projects are generally in the states that have the greatest need and are furthest behind. Of the 14 major projects that have been approved in the state sector only one has occurred in one of the five states detailed earlier (REC Generation).

This results in the middle of the pack of Indian states progressing and becoming more appealing places to start new rural electrification projects while the states that lag behind fall further behind as they are not profitable enough areas to merit investment. This is especially the case in Bihar as it is the most corrupt state in India which makes the cost of doing business there unappealing for organizations like REC. This cannot be solved by simply approving more loans to projects in these five states as their applications are generally being denied due to their poor planning and profitability. REC must still be profitable so it can continue to do its work, but it also needs to expand service to the least developed regions.

REC needs to create a new division dedicated solely to states of Assam, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. This division should expand its mandate so as to include providing assistance in crafting these loan proposals, take a larger role in designing the electrification projects and provide significant levels of supervision for these projects in order to ensure they get implemented with a minimum of delay and waste from corruption and poor management. This new division will most likely be less profitable than the rest of REC, but lower profit margins are acceptable if these five states that have fallen behind catch up and are no longer the basketcases of India in terms of rural electrification.

-Up next in the series a look at the Rajiv Gandhia Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana project followed by a look at what USAID is doing as well as some NGO's and then wrapping this series up.

Bibliography:

"38th Annual Report 2006-2007." Rural Electrification Corporation Limited.

    2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://recindia.nic.in/>.

"Corporate Profile." Rural Electrification Corporation Limited. Web. 17 Nov.

    2009. <http://recindia.nic.in/profile.html>.

"Generation." Rural Electrification Corporation Limited. Web. 17 Nov.

     2009. <http://recindia.nic.in/generation.html>

"Ministry of Power." Ministry of Power: About Ministry. Web. 18 Nov.

     2009. <http://www.powermin.nic.in/JSP_SERVLETS/internal.jsp>.

"RFQ for at least one UMPP soon: Officials." Business Standard. 12

    July 2009. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. <http://www.business-standard.

    com/india/news/rfq-for-at-least-one-umpp-soon-    

    officials/363634/>.

Rural Electrification in India part 3- Analysis of the 5 States and Lessons

Orissa

Orissa has been one of the states most neglected by the Indian national government. Since Indian independence in 1947, the only major infrastructure improvement that has been made was the construction of the Hirakud Dam (Orissa). While that is one of the largest dams in the world, it was started by the British and the newly independent Indian government simply continued and completed it in 1956. Since then the Indian government has done relatively little to alleviate energy and general poverty in Orissa. This negligence is reflected in the fact that only 20% of the roads in Orissa are paved and that over 35% of the rural population has no access to safe drinking water in comparison to the all-India statistic of 84% of the population with access to safe drinking water (Orissa, UNICEF). It is possible that this lack of government attention in infrastructure in Orissa is what encouraged the local government to take the forefront in Indian privatization of the electricity transmission and distribution sector by being the first state to privatize their electrical grid system .

Geographically, Orissa is divided into two parts, the coastal strip along the Mahandadi River which includes the capitol city of Bhubaneswar and the mountainous interior. The bulk of the population lives in the river delta while the interior is sparsely populated, however 85% of the population live in rural areas (Orissa, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation). Thus more people live outside of Bhubaneswar in the coastal plane than live within the city. But this also means that the close proximity of the rural and urban populations makes it easier for electrification plans to function as a hub and spoke system with Bhubaneswar in the center.

Orissa holds roughly one fifth of India's coal and the extraction of which has caused high levels of ecological damage in the area. While there are two national parks in the state, the Simlipal Tiger Reserve and the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary, along with other relatively untouched natural areas, it seems that the push for development in Orissa will win out over the push to preserve the environment and these massive coal reserves will be exploited for power generation (Orissa). However, even if and when Orissa starts to make large coal power plants to utilize their available natural resources and provide greater energy security to its population the state still faces the large issue of distributing the power to the rural villages and households.

Orissa has a population density that is lower than the Indian average which means that any state grid system installed must cover a vast majority of the state's geographic area in order to provide power to all its villages and peoples (Orissa). Challenges to this grid that face Orissa, and much of the rest of the east coast of India, are cyclones and strong winds. These weather conditions threaten the grid by either blowing down the lines or blowing things into the lines and knocking them down. A method typically used to harden grid infrastructure against high winds is burying cables. However, the soil in Orissa is generally too waterlogged and flood prone to make burying transmission wires a reasonable technical solution to harden the electrical grid (Orissa). Also, the higher general costs of subsurface powerlines in comparison to overhead lines means that any attempt to make an electrical grid network in Orissa must be through suspended lines and the grid makers must be prepared to have high maintenance costs as the lines gets blown or knocked down.

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh has the most diverse climate of the five states examined. Including some of the Himalayas, the state is subject to both snowfall averaging 10 to 15 feet between December and March and monsoons from June to September (Uttar Pradesh). Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India with over 190 million people and growing at 25% a year, however its economy is growing at one of the slowest rates in all of India at 4.4% a year (Ministry of Finance, Economist). Roughly 56% of its 138 million rural households do not use electricity as a source of lighting (RGGVY Brochure).

Its extreme weather and population size make it the least likely candidate for a successful renewable energy based solution to its rural electrification problem. However, its proximity to New Delhi, one of India's most prosperous and dynamic areas means that Uttar Pradesh may be able to piggy back on the New Delhi electrical grid as a means of providing reliable electricity to the state. In order to enact a far more ambitious and self-reliant electrification plan, Uttar Pradesh should look at its monsoons as a resource and not as a liability.

The state receives roughly 90% of its rainfall during the monsoon season of June to September and floods often occur as a result causing loss of live, property and crops (Uttar Pradesh). The governments of India and of Uttar Pradesh have a strong incentive to try to control and channel the rain waters to avoid flooding and provide adequate water throughout the year. One rather infrastructure and capital intensive method of controlling the floods is the construction of ditches, dykes, dams and reservoirs. If properly designed, this investment could pay for itself in the protection they provide to farmland and buildings in the region as well as by adding jobs and spurring economic activity. These flood waters should be controlled to increase general security in Uttar Pradesh. If these dams are built with electric generators, the energy security situation in Uttar Pradesh will improve as well.

While most of Uttar Pradesh fully lacks electricity, even those who have it, like the “small scale industrial units” are victims of the unreliable electric supply. The UP State Electricity Board cannot provide adequate power to those already hooked up to the grid which prevents the industries in the region to meet their full production capacity and keeps the state mired in poverty. The state is home to 12% of India's over 2.3 million “small scale industrial units” which are factories or operations whose “manufacture, processing or preservation of goods and whose investment in plant and machinery (original cost) does not exceed Rs.1 crore” (Uttar Pradesh, Reserve Bank of India). Thus this lack of reliability within regions that already have access to electricity may be an even greater limitation to development than the complete lack of electrification in some areas. This is also a large part of the reason that the Uttar Pradesh economy grew at only 4.4% annually between 1999 and 2008 while the Indian economy grew at a 7.3% average annual rate (Economist).

Lessons of the State Analyzes

These five states have a variety of problems that are serious impediments to electrical provisioning among their rural population. Bihar's corrupt government makes them dissatisfying partners to work with in increasing rural electrification in the area while the need for Jhakhand's state government to strengthen in the face of the growing separatist movement based there makes it more important to include them in efforts to increase rural electrification. Assam's environment should be kept as pristine as possible while still providing electricity whereas Uttar Pradesh's land and hydrology may have to be significantly altered to provide its population with power. Increasing rural electrification in these five states is a complex process where a wide variety of conditions, limitations and resources need to be considered. This complexity means that one size does not fit all in terms of rural electrification programs in India, however that is the current course of action of the Indian national government and its subsidiaries.

Bibliography:

"Bhubaneswar Municipal Commissioner." Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.

    Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://bmc.gov.in/aboutusm.asp>.

India. Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey 2006-2007. Print.

"Orissa." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Nov. 2009.

    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orissa>.

"Reserve Bank of India." Reserve Bank of India - India's Central Bank.

    Web. 22 Nov. 2009. <http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/

    BS_CircularIndexDisplay.aspx?Id=3391>.

Rural Electrification Corporation Limited. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran

    Yojana. Rural Electrification Corporation Limited. Apr. 2005. Web. 19

    Nov. 2009. <http://recindia.nic.in/download/rggvy_brochure.pdf>.

"Though inequalities are widening, India’s best prescription remains

     continued rapid growth." The Economist 11 Dec. 2008. Print.

United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF). New York, NY. "Safe Drinking

     Water." Excerpt from "Progress since the World Summit for Children:

    A Statistical Review." September 2001.

"Uttar Pradesh." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Nov. 2009.

     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh>.

Rural Electrification in India part 2- Analysis of 3 of the 5 States

Assam

Of the five states, Assam is the state in the worst geographic, climactic, and political situation in terms of providing rural electrification to its people. It is connected to the rest of India through a narrow strip in West Bangal called the Siliguri Corridor which is flood and cyclone prone (Assam). This makes the connection of Assam to the rest of the Indian national grid extremely difficult as the infrastructure runs the risk of being destroyed through natural disasters. Also, fewer potential siting paths in this narrow strip make power line siting problematic. On top of these problems, the great distance that the grid would need to cover to reach this remote state make extending the grid to Assam a very costly project. Thus any rural electrification program in Assam must be focused on either an Assam based mico-grid or a completely off-grid solution.

One of Asia's most important rivers, the Brahmaputra, meanders through much of Assam watering its many tropical and deciduous forests and makes it one of the most biodiverse and beautiful states in the nation (Assam). These forests and other areas of high environmental quality and importance are why Assam attracts so many wild-life and eco-tourists and hosts two UNESCO sights. Assam is also home to an active terrorist separatist movement that is motivated by ethnic and religious differences and the state also experiences frequent small earthquakes (Assam).

So while Assam could tap into the power of its river by damming it, the environmental destruction as well as the loss of tourism and world heritage status would be a strong and likely insurmountable deterrent to the utilization of that technology. This geographic and climactic situation result in higher costs to damming the river, while the political situation involving the separatists and the tectonic situation makes the lifetime and security of a potential dam more uncertain, thereby driving up the project's risk premium. Also, the Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river so India exerting more control over it's flow regime could be a new source of tension with Bangladesh. Thus an Assam-wide micro-grid that gets a preponderance of its power from dams on the Brahmaputra river would be an inappropriate solution to Assam's rural electrification issue and smaller decentralized electrical solutions should be considered more seriously.

Assam experiences heavy monsoon in the summer months and foggy nights and mornings in the winter which make it ill suited for photovoltaic and solar thermal energy systems (Assam). Also the suitability of a biofuel based solution in the state is questionable as Assam is home to diverse, fragile and important forest ecosystems. The potential that biofuel dependence has to result in the destruction of these forests in order to transform them to cropland must be taken into account when weighing the pros and cons of a particular energy solution to apply to Assam.

In terms of its fossil fuel potential, the state currently supplies 25% of India's petroleum and has abundant coal and natural gas supplies (Assam). However, the relative poverty of Assam in relation with the rest of India means that mining operations in Assam can profit more by exporting the fossil fuel resources than by using them locally. Also, the implementation of fossil fuel based electrical generation would require large amounts of transmission infrastructure, which may encroach upon the protected ecosystem, and these power generating facilities would still be threatened from the heavy monsoons, earthquakes and terrorist attacks that occur in Assam (Hussain). Thus distributed energy generation technology may be most appropriate to Assam as it minimizes space used and lowers the risk of a single event causing massive power failure.

Bihar

Bihar is mainly composed of a flat, fertile plane with the Ganges River flowing through it. The river floods regularly as it fills with monsoon rains in Bihar and carries the rains from areas further upstream like the Nepalese Himalayas. The river flows from the northern mountains which are part of Nepal to the southern plateau that was part of Bihar until 2000, but now is part of the newly formed state of Jhankand. It is India's third largest state by population and youngest state in terms of age distribution, meanwhile 85% of its residents live in villages (Bihar). The large, predominantly young and predominantly rural population would suggest that Bihar would see a high level of migration to Bihari cities, however for reasons clarified below, that has not been the case.

Along with Orissa, Bihar has been one of the most neglected states in India in terms of attention and funds received from the federal government. Bihar is the poorest state in all of India and yet receives less financial assistance for health and education than the average Indian state. The central government's per capita investment in education and health in Bihar is 18% and 55% respectively below the average per capita funding received by the other states (Guruswamy). Typically the central government gives more funds for development to urban centers as they have higher quality institutions and governance than rural areas so the funds get better utilized. However, the central government provides significantly lower financial institutional assistance to Bihar than to other states so government aide to Bihar is not as affective as aide elsewhere so the government directs funds elsewhere (Guruswamy). This has resulted in a situation where Bihari students do not necessarily receive higher quality education and more possibilities for employment in cities and so Bihar has seen de-urbanization, which is unprecedented in India.

Bihar may also not be a beneficiary of the largess of the central government due to its massive amounts of corruption. According to a Transparency International 2005 study, Bihar is India's most corrupt state which may discourage aide programs as the government may rightfully fear that this money will simply disappear (Transparency). This is a greater obstacle for larger projects as there are more opportunities for funds to go missing when the amounts are so large, there is a greater distance between the funding sources and where the funding ultimately goes, there are more people involved, and there are more complexities in the project.

The current situation in Bihar suggests that large, capital intensive projects should be avoided due to corruption and regular population shifts. Until patterns in population shifts become more predictable in Bihar, large outlays of capital and infrastructure should be postponed in order to avoid building infrastructure to reach populations that are no longer there. Also, it is recommendable for NGOs and other non-Indian governmental organizations to avoid working directly with the Bihari government if possible and work on small projects directly with those who will benefit from them.

Jharkhand

The land of Jharkand is one of the richest in India in terms of natural mineral resources and one of the poorest in terms of the wealth of its rural populations. Poverty in the region is so profound that roughly 2,322,000 rural families live below India's poverty line (Infochange). This poverty rate of greater than 10% of the population coupled with the vast natural resource wealth that has not been profiting the local population has contributed to the success of the Naxalite rebels in making the state the center of their insurgency (Jharkand).

The poverty gap between rural subsistence farmers and wealthy city dwellers in Ranchi who have profited from the state's natural resources has made recruitment to the communist rebel groups, the Naxalites, very appealing as they argue that they are fighting for the rural poor against capitalist exploitation. The Naxalites have started targeting infrastructure related to the extraction of natural resources as the federal government holds a monopoly on sub-surface resources and the tribal population is prevented from taking any claim on them (Asia Times, Global Politician). While the Naxalites are problematic in some of the other states outlined in this paper like Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, they have the greatest amount of control over Jharkhand and it is the center of the Naxal insurgency and government counter-insurgency efforts (Jharkhand).

However, the Naxalites are a separatist group and want the parts of India that they control to break off of the rest of the nation to form a Maoist state. So while they are attacking large scale power infrastructure projects and installations thus making these projects more costly and less desirable to build, there is still a benefit to their construction beyond the power services they could provide. By building a strong electrical grid in Jharkand that connects to neighboring states the Indian government will have a stronger interest in maintaining control over the state and defeating the Naxalites. The Indian government will have this added incentive to maintain control in the region so as not to loose on its investment and the population will be less likely to support the Naxalites as the state of India has helped them rise out of poverty due to increased electrical access. So while these projects are attacked because the Naxalites want to get the federal government out of the state, it is possible that the state should increase these same sorts of projects to reassert control.

The Naxalite terrorist uprising threatens any attempt to utilize the natural mineral resources of the region so any move to increase coal mining and coal powered electrification in the region is susceptible to attacks. But smaller scale, renewable energy based electrification schemes may not be viewed as another attempt to exploit the people and the state of Jharkhand resulting in a lower risk premium. These renewable energy projects may be more fitting for the state as it receives both high levels of wind and sun on a regular basis. However, the nature of the clear skies for most of the year and the four month monsoon requires a energy source mix so as to have a system that produces energy both in and out of monsoon season (WebIndia123).

The need for rural electrification in Jharkhand is pressing as the population of its capital, Ranchi, is exploding. While the rural and urban population of Ranchi are both growing, the urban population has grown 33.83% from 1991 to 2001 while the rural population has grown only 21.83% (Ranchi at a Glance) . This 10% discrepancy can be mainly attributed to migrations from rural to urban Ranchi. This trend will continue and possibly accelerate thereby increasing grid stress and energy insecurity in Ranchi, so efforts designed to promote rural electrification that take into account Jharkhand's climate and political situation are necessary to increase overall energy security in the state.

Bibliography:

• "Assam -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org  /wiki/Assam>. 

• "Bihar -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar#Economy>.

• Carl, Jeremy. "Hidden civil war drains India's energy." Asia Times Online 9 Aug. 2006. Print.
• "Climate of jharkhand-rivers of jharkhand-webindia123.com." Webindia123.com. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. <http://www.webindia123.com/jharkhand/land/climate.htm>.

• Guruswamy, Mohan, and Jeevan Mohanty. The De-urbanization of Bihar. Centre for Policy Alternatives, Feb. 2004. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://cpasindia.org/>.

• Hussain, Zarir. "Poll fever grips Assam: development, terrorism main campaign issues." Indians in Thailand. Thai Indian News, 5 Feb. 2009. Web. 17 Nov. 2009. <http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/poll-fever-grips-assam-development- terrorism-main-campaign-issues_100151257.html>.

• "India corruption study 2005/news archive/newsroom/asia_pacific/regional pages." Transparency International. June 2005. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://www.transparency.org/regional_pages      /asia_pacific/newsroom/news_archive2/india_corruption study_2005>.
  

• "InfoChange India News & Features development news India - Hunger in picture-postcard        Jharkhand." InfoChange India News & Features. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://infochangeindia.org

          /20051107207/Agriculture/Features/Hunger-in-picture-postcard- Jharkhand.html>.

• "Jharkhand -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org

         /wiki/Jharkhand>.

• Thapaliya, Bhuwan. "Rising Maoists Insurgency in India." Global Politician (2007). http://globalpolitician.com/22790-india

• "Welcome to the Official Website of Ranchi District, Jharkhand."Official Website of Ranchi, Jharkhand Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://www.ranchi.nic.in/glance.htm>.

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Coming up next: Part 3 of the Rural Electrification in India series which will be an analysis of the other 2 states that rank lowest in terms of both household and village electrification. This will be a 10 part series (more or less), so get excited!

Rural Electrification in India- an introduction

Home to some of the world's largest and most vibrant cities where new companies form every week and help pull millions of people out of poverty, India is becoming a leading economic power in the world. Everyday India's mega-cities swell with new migrants from rural areas who come seeking a better life than that which they left behind. Cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta are now home to skyscrapers, and immense wealth and power. But outside of these cities, millions of Indians are still mired in energy poverty and are without access to reliable electricity.

Over half of rural households in India are without electricity (RGGVY Brochure). Those without electricity rely on inefficient solid fuel stoves for light and heat thereby exposing themselves to fine particulate matter which can result in severe health problems. Villages without electricity are dangerous places at night as victims cannot see and then later identify their attackers. And the lack of regular and reliable access to electricity retards economic development in these poor regions. This energy and poverty gap in India leads to high rates of rural to urban migration and social instability as these mega-cities try to absorb more people.

All of these issues significantly deteriorate India's national and energy security situation, and the Indian national government, foreign governments and non-governmental organizations have taken note and have launched initiatives to try solve this problem of energy poverty.

The lack of electrification in rural India in itself is an energy security issue, and the projects and solutions proposed by a variety of organizations, if implemented, will change India's energy security situation, solving some problems and possibly causing new ones. This paper examines and critiques several of these organizations and their programs.

The Scope of The Problem

The vast majority of India's urban population is connected to the grid and although they experience frequent and enduring blackouts, they are still more energy rich than the 56% of rural households that do not have access to electricity (RGGVY Brochure). This 56% of Indian households without electricity represents the largest number of households without access to electricity in any one nation in the world (RGGVY Brochure). This disparity between populations with some access to the grid and those with absolutely no access is one of the main drivers in domestic migration. But this massive migration to these areas with an unreliable grid add more stress to that grid and make it significantly less reliable. Grid improvements can be made in these areas to increase reliability, but if the demand growth continues unabated due to population growth and upwards mobility, the grid will soon be overwhelmed again.

India is divided into 28 states and seven union territories (UT). Within these 35 areas there is a wide discrepancy of village and household electrification rates where several have reached full village electrification while others are significantly below 75%, see Table 1 (RGGVY Brochure).The five states that rank lowest in terms of both household and village electrification are Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. These states are all in the northern and eastern parts of the nation, but the geography and climate of these regions varies significantly. Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, while Jharkhand is mainly on the Chota Nagpur Plateau and Orissa is on the plateau and the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The differences between plains, plateaus and coastline are important to consider while planning rural electrification schemes in these states as the conditions affect the possibility of implementing certain power projects.

Village Electrification Rates	Number of States and UTs
100%	17
+95%	7
75%-95%	6
Under 75%	5
Household Electrification Rates	Number of States and UTs
+85%	7
85%-50%	16
50%-20%	7
Under 20%	5

These five states have fallen behind the rest of the pack for a variety of reasons. These reasons are important to examine and understand in order to analyze the potential effectiveness of a particular project that is slated to be implemented to address the rural electrification problem within any of these states. Without a basic grasp of the unique situations of the five states, rural electrification projects will be more likely to fail as they will not be appropriately designed to match up with the region.

Bibliography:

Rural Electrificaton Corporation Limited. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen

Vidyutikaran Yojana. Rural  Electrificaton Corporation Limited.

Apr. 2005. Web. 19 Nov. 2009.

<http://recindia.nic.in/download/rggvy_brochure.pdf>.