Rural Electrification in India: Customer Behaviour and Demand
Jaideep Mukherji
The report is a collaboration between Smart Power India (SPI), a subsidiary of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP), at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The report distils learnings on electricity access and customer demand. One of the unique contributions of this report is the insight on baseline electricity demand at a village level, including the use of electricity for productive purposes. The findings in this report are based on primary data collected from customer surveys of over 10,000 rural households and 2,000 rural enterprises across four Indian states – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. This report also provides insights into customer experiences under different electricity delivery models – public sector distribution companies (DISCOMs), solar mini-grids, and private distribution franchises.