Lights Out, Income Down: One-Hour Rise In Power Outage Cuts Indian Households’ Income by 0.5 Per Cent, Says Study

According to Fan Zhang of World Bank, household income in India reduces by 0.5 per cent every time daily power outages increase by an hour, reports Economic Times (ET). Zhang, who is a Senior Economist at the Office of the Chief Economist of the South Asia Region at the bank, is the lead author of the recently released report on India’s power sector.

“Gaining access to the grid is associated with a 16.7 per cent increase in households’ income between 2005 and 2012 if the power supply was reliable and only a 9.6 per cent increase when the power supply was not,” she added in an interview with ET.

She was reportedly also appreciative of India’s recent accomplishments in expanding electricity access. “India has made remarkable progress in expanding electricity access, reducing power shortages, and developing renewable energy over the past few years,” she said.

The NDA government, led by PM Modi, has launched the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya) scheme aims to electrify all the remaining households in the country by March 2019. It has already recorded coverage of over two crores households.

Reiterating her support for direct cash transfer to end consumers of electricity in the country, Mr Zhang noted, ‘Gaining access to the grid is associated with a 16.7 per cent increase in households income between 2005 and 2012 if the power supply was reliable and only a 9.6 per cent increase when the power supply was not.’

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