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India's electricity sector remains marked by financial indebtedness and low access and quality. To understand why, Mapping Power provides the first thorough analysis of the political economy of electricity in Indian states. The book examines how the political economy of power both shapes and is shaped by a state's political economy. It concludes that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced. Instead, successful reform efforts should aim at a positive dynamicbetween electricity reform and electoral success.
List of contents
- List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: A Framework for Mapping Power
Sunila S. Kale, Navroz K. Dubash and Ranjit Bharvirkar
1. Transforming Reforms: Hype, Hostility and Placation in Andhra Pradesh's Power Sector Reforms
Ashwini K. Swain
2. Disempowerment of Incumbent Elite and Governance: A Case of Bihar's Electricity Sector
Md. Zakaria Siddiqui
3. Wielding Power in the Capital: The Case of the Delhi Electricity Distribution Sector
Megha Kaladharan
4. Gujarat's Success in Efficient Electricity Distribution: A Call for Proactive Governance to Further Gains
Siddharth Sareen
5. Extractive States and Layered Conflict: The Case of Jharkhand's Electricity Sector
Rohit Chandra
6. Efficiency and Welfare: the Tightrope Walk in Karnataka's Power Sector
Meera Sudhakar
7. Poverty in the Midst of Abundance: Repressive Populism, Bureaucratization, and Supply-Side Bias in Madhya Pradesh's Power Sector
Ashwini K. Swain
8. Paradoxes of Distribution
- Reforms in Maharashtra
Kalpana Dixit
9. Endless Restructuring of the Power Sector in Odisha: A Sisyphean Tale?
Mrigakshi Das and Mahaprajna Nayak
10. Protecting Power: The Politics of Partial Reforms in Punjab
Ashwini K. Swain
11. Electricity Distribution in Rajasthan: Unbundling theRecurrent Failures of a Politicised Sector
Siddharth Sareen
12. Tamil Nadu Power Sector - the Saga of the Subsidy Trap
Hema Ramakrishnan
13. Stalled Reform in the Face of Electoral Fears: Uttar Pradesh's Electricity Distribution Sector
Jonathan Balls
14. Uttarakhand: The Golden Combination of Cheap Energy and a Large Industrial Base
Jonathan Balls
15. Insulated Wires: The Precarious Rise of West Bengal's Power Sector
Elizabeth Chatterjee
Mapping Power: Comparative Analysis across States
Navroz K. Dubash, Ranjit Bharvirkar and Sunila S. Kale
Index
About the Editors and Contributors.
About the author
Ranjit Bharvirkar directs the India program at the Regulatory Assistance Project, a global non-profit focused on energy policy and climate change. He has more than 16 years of experience in electricity policy analysis and technical advice and assistance to state- and national-level policymakers in the U.S. and India. Mr. Bharvirkar recently contributed to India's Renewable Electricity Roadmap Initiative undertaken by the ?Government of India. Mr. Bharvirkar has co-authored several journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, discussion papers, and a book chapter.
Navroz K Dubash is a senior fellow at CPR. He works on climate change policy and governance, energy and water policy, and regulation and has published widely in these areas. He has been an author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a member of Government of India committees on climate change, energy and water. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Climate Policy, Global
Environmental Politics, and Energy Research in Social Science. In 2015 he was conferred the 12th T N Khoshoo Memorial Award in recognition of the impact of his work on Indian climate change policy and the international discourse on global climate governance.
Dr. Dubash holds an MA and PhD in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an AB in public and international affairs from Princeton University.
Sunila S. Kale is Associate Professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and Chair of South Asia Studies at the University of Washington. Her teaching and research focus on the politics and political economy of India and South Asia, history and politics of energy and electricity, development studies, and the history and present-day manifestations of capitalism.
Summary
Despite several decades of reform, India's electricity sector remains marked by the twin problems of financial indebtedness and inability to provide universal, high quality electricity for all. Although political obstacles to reform are frequently invoked in electricity policy debates, Mapping Power provides the first thorough analysis of the political economy of electricity in Indian states. Through narratives of the electricity sectors in fifteen major states, this book argues that a historically-rooted political economy analysis provides the most useful means to understand the past and identify reforms for the future. The book begins with an analytic framework to understand how the political economy of power both shapes and is shaped by a given state's larger political economy. The book concludes with a synthetic account of the political economy of electricity that is animated by insights from the state-level empirical materials. The volume shows that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced. Instead, successful reform efforts should aim at a positive dynamic between electricity reform and electoral success.
