Eradicating Energy Poverty Overcoming 'Barriers' to Decentralized Energy Systems in India

Decentralized energy systems paradigm calls for – a) evidence-based policy for local resource assessment, and b) context-specific energy needs assessment for- overcoming ‘barriers’ to decentralized energy systems in India.

Dr. Manashvi Kumar presents an incredibly nuanced examination of complex and intertwined conditions that are termed as Energy Poverty. An officer of India's elite civil service (Indian Administrative Service) he has used his zeal for ground level social transformation to conduct extensive field-based studies in a vast swath of rural India to produce this remarkably comprehensive and well researched book. Using multiple methods including surveys and quantitative measures as well as careful ethnographic sensibilities, he offers novel insights into the barriers of energy access for the rural poor, and significantly how (political) power and the distribution of (electrical) power are enmeshed. He argues for policy solutions that are sensitive to the micro-dynamics of socio-cultural contexts in which people and power co-exist.

-- Professor Navdeep Mathur, Public Systems Group, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Decentralized energysystems paradigm calls for – a) evidence-based policy for local resource assessment, and b) context-specific energy needs assessment for- overcoming ‘barriers’ to decentralized energy systems in India. The pristine bedrock of the book comprises theoretical underpinnings of empiricism, behaviourism and realism. These concepts find their extension through inter-disciplinarity, and the mixed methods approach adopted for understanding spaces and cultures of energy consumption. Demand side management in energy sector entails-migration from a target-based (TB) approach towards an evidence-based (EB) approach for designing context-based policies in respect of energy demand, and an associated policy shift from a techno-economic regime towards a socio-technical regime embedded in ‘appropriate’ contexts. “Prosumerism holds the key to democratization of energy systems in India.”

Dr. Manashvi Kumar belongs to the 2004 batch of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) of Punjab cadre. He has an exceptional bachelor’s and master’s degree in earth sciences and an award-winning doctorate in political science. His academic interest spans across subjects pertaining to land, water, energy and power, climate change, regulatory capture, government failure, comparative public policy, inter-disciplinary research, mixed methods research, evidence-based policy and policy analysis.