Mapping Power

Description

Electricity is critical to enabling India’s economic growth and providing a better future for its citizens. In spite of several decades of reform, the Indian electricity sector is unable to provide high-quality and affordable electricity for all, and grapples with the challenge of poor financial and operational performance.
To understand why, Mapping Power provides the most comprehensive analysis of the political economy of electricity in India’s states. With chapters on fifteen states by scholars of state politics and electricity, this volume maps the political and economic forces that constrain and shape decisions in electricity distribution. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it concludes that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced and could worsen outcomes. Instead, it suggests that a historically grounded political economy analysis helps understand the past and devise reforms to simultaneously improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards. These arguments have implications for the challenges facing India’s electricity future, including providing electricity to all, implementing government reform schemes, and successfully managing the rise of renewable energy.

About the Editors
Navroz K. Dubash is professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India, where he coordinates the Initiative on Climate, Energy, and Environment.
Sunila S. Kale is a faculty member at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, where she is also the chair and director of South Asia Studies Center and Program.
Ranjit Bharvirkar is a Principal at the Regulatory Assistance Project where he directs the India programme.

Table of contents

Preface
List of Tables and Figures
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 Kaladhara
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 the Recurrent Failures of a Politicized 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

Conclusion: Mapping Power in Comparative State Context
Navroz K. Dubash, Sunila S. Kale, and Ranjit Bharvirkar

Index
About the Editors and Contributors