POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ENERGY POVERTY IN ODISHA

Abstract

In a state like Odisha, where 83.6 percent of the area is rural and tribal with an estimate of 51 313 rural villages and over 67 82 879 rural households; about 17 percent of villages until September 2012 lack electricity; only 20 per cent of the rural roads are paved; 37 percent of the rural population living below the poverty line; 1/3 of the total population constitute from the lower socio-cultural and economic group; 36 percent represents scheduled tribes and castes; and over 35 percent of the rural population has no access to safe drinking water in comparison to all India level of 84 per cent. In South Odisha around 80 percent of the population is classified as poor and its development indicators are often worse than Sub-Saharan Africa. Several thousand households both rural and urban in Odisha do not have access to electricity and to modern energy fuels as well. Moreover, a great number of them have no access to clean water. This means that they do not have access to economic development and they spend good deal of their time collecting traditional energy resources such as wood, cow dung and water leading to health problems and accelerating deforestation. In this background, the paper endeavours to explain the political economy of energy poverty in Odisha and tries to understand how access to modern energy may trigger economic development in rural Odisha and then to recommend policy measures to come out of the prevailing problems and challenges.