Rural Electrification in Bihar: Progress and Ground Realities
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「インドにおける農村公的雇用保障プログラムが農村労働市場に与える影響」研究会中間報告書 Mid-Term Research Project Report （Project：Understanding the Impact of Employment Guarantee Programme on Labour Market in India） Rural Electrification in Bihar: Progress and Ground Realities Hisaya Oda College of Policy Science Ritusmeikan University and Yuko Tsujita Area Studies Center Institute of Developing Economies Abstract Rural electrification is one of top items on the development agenda for the government of India. Although rural electrification continues under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Programme that began in 2005 and the government celebrates its accomplishment of electrifying one lakh (100,000) villages, there are serious challenges ahead. This paper, based on our survey in rural Bihar, reveals that the progress of rural electrification may not be as advanced as government statistics indicate. Many villages became de-electrified in the past when inadequate government-provided transformers failed due to insufficient capacity. Some villages were fortunate and have been re-electrified, but many have been left un-electrified; simply waiting for the government 1 to help has proved to be an ineffective solution. This paper also reports on the issue of illegal connections. Power theft has become rampant in rural areas. As rural electrification progresses, access to electricity is easier than before. Governance is weak in rural areas, so there is virtually no checking and monitoring system for electricity use. These factors motivate some villagers to access electricity illegally. The government’s program to provide electricity to all the villages and all the households in rural areas should not be slowed, but side effects such as illegal connections should be taken more seriously. If not, it will make rural electrification unsustainable as it will become another serious burden to India’s power sector, which has been running at a loss for decades. Key Words: rural electrification, illegal connection, de-electrification, RGVVY, caste, landholdings, Bihar, India 1. Introduction Rural electrification is one of top items on the development agenda for the government of India. Because around 70% of India’s total population lives in the country’s rural areas, electrical supply to these areas is crucial in terms of both economic and social benefits.1 Electricity has many economic benefits: it can be used for irrigation pumps, processing agricultural output, storing perishable agricultural goods, and so on.2 Since agriculture is predominant in the rural economy, electricity can play a crucial role in reducing poverty and promoting rural development. The social benefits that electricity brings are manifold and critically important for well-being. It allows children to study and women to cook at night. It produces cleaner indoor air than biomass fuels, thus 2 contributing to human health (Barnes et al., 1997; UNDP/WHO, 2009). Furthermore, it gives rural populations access to telecommunication and mass media (Andreas, 2006). It has also been noted that electricity usage has a positive impact on rural women’s lives as they can gain time for other activities by using electricity in their daily activities, such as cooking and pumping water (UNDP/World, Bank 2004; World Bank, 2012). Rural electrification has an indirect but important effect on women’s participation in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (known as NREGA), which aims to reduce rural poverty by providing unskilled manual labor jobs for the poor, since women with some free time can join NREGA and earn wages for their family.3 According to a recent report, “Electricity not only alleviates poverty in the near term but also holds the potential to do so over the longer run” (World Bank, 2012). Thus, the provision of electricity impacts the lives of rural populations. Because of the diverse nature and extent of the socioeconomic benefits of electricity in rural areas, rural electrification is a critical issue in many developing countries.4 In 1947, when India gained independence, only 1500 villages were electrified (Government of India, 2011a). The flagship rural electrification program Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY: Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Programme5) has been the main driver of rural electrification since its introduction in 2005. 6 As of the end of March 2012, more than 90% of all villages in India had access to electricity. Six of the major states (Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) have attained 100% village-level electrification (Table 1). The rates are high even in low-income states such as Orissa (78.9%), Jharkhand (89.2%), Bihar (89.9%), and Uttar Pradesh (89.9%). 3 Table 1 State-wise Progress of Rural Electrification Percentage of State Village Electrified Andhra Pradesh 100.0 Assam 96.1 Bihar 89.9 Jharkhand 89.2 Gujrat 99.8 Haryana 100.0 Himachal Pradesh 99.8 Jammu and Kashmir 98.2 Karnataka 100.0 Kerala 100.0 Madhya Pradesh 97.2 Maharashtra 99.9 Orissa 78.9 Punjab 100.0 Rajasthan 96.2 Tamil Nadu 100.0 Uttar Pradesh 88.9 West Bengal 99.7 India 93.9 Note: Figure as of March 31, 2012. Source: Indiastat (http://www.indiastat.com). The original data are from Ministry of Power, Government of India. Because of attractive financial incentives, rural electrification has expanded rapidly since the introduction of RGGVY, as Figure 1 indicates, especially in underdeveloped states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. For example, more than 27,000 villages have been electrified in Uttar Pradesh, 19,306 in Bihar, and 16,849 in Jharkhand. These three states account for nearly 70% of villages electrified under RGGVY.As of 31 December 2011, 100,917 un-electrified villages had been electrified 4 and 179.41 lakh (17.94 million) below poverty line (BPL) households received free electricity connections under RGGVY.7 A further “intensive electrification” process in already electrified villages is being conducted in states where rates of village level electrification are already high. Since the target set by Bharat Nirman for RGGVY is to electrify one lakh (100,000) villages and to provide free electricity connections to 175 lakh (17.5 million) BPL households by March 20128, these figures suggest that the targets were achieved well before the deadline9, and rural electrification continues to make progress under RGGVY. Figure 1 The Annual Number of Electrified Villages 35000 RGGVY 30000 25000 20000 15000 No. of villages 10000 5000 0 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 Note: The definition of electrification changed in 1997 and 2004. Source: Government of India (2012) Judging from these figures, village level electrification has been successful and would seem to not be an issue in India anymore. However, through our village surveys we 5 observed several problems in rural electrification. In this paper, we discuss two of them; one is the issue of de-electrification, and the other is illegal electricity connections. The organization of the paper is as follows: Section 2 describes the selection of surveyed villages and households; Section 3 discusses de-electrification and re-electrification of villages; Section 4 examines illegal access to electricity; and Section 5 concludes. 2. Selection of Surveyed Villages and Households in Bihar To investigate the status of rural electrification, we carried out a village-level survey in 80 villages during 2008–09 and 2011–12 with the help of the Asian Development Research Institute. Because of Bihar’s three-tiered organization for rural self-government at district, block and village (gram) levels, known as the panchayat system, we used the following method to select 80 villages to be surveyed. First, five districts in Bihar state (Bhagalpur, East Champaran, Kishanganj, Madhubani, and Rohtas) were selected, one from each of the five district groupings, in accordance with ranking on the livelihood potential index (Figure 2). This index is compiled on the basis of availability of land per rural household, cropping intensity, agricultural productivity, head of cattle per 1000 people, and percentage of urban population (for details, see ADRI, undated). Since approximately 90% of the state’s population resides in rural areas and nearly 80% of its rural workforce is engaged in the agriculture sector, indicators related to farming and farming-related activities were regarded as the most important criteria for measuring livelihoods. A summary of the socioeconomic characteristics of each district is provided in Table 2. 6 Table 2 Socioeconomic Indicators for Surveyed Districts East District Survey year Rohtas Kishanganj Bhagalpur Madhubani Bihar Champaran Per capita net district domestic product in 2004/05 prices (INR) 2009/10 11,167 8243 14,396 7584 7640 11,944 Literacy rate (%) 2011 75.59 57.04 64.96 60.9 58.26 63.82 Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 births) 2005 49.28 79.89 66 82.36 80.7 61 Proportion of SCs (%) 2011 18.55 6.69 10.51 13.12 12.78 15.96 Proportion of Muslims (%) 1991 9.4 65.9 16.1 16.7 18.4 15.7 Availability of land per rural household (hectare) 2003/04 0.84 0.57 0.42 0.35 0.47 0.45 Cropping intensity 2003/04 1.43 1.49 1.22 1.41 1.12 1.38 Agricultural productivity (yield of paddy, tons of rice per hectare) 2003/04 2.65 1.5 1.27 1.01 1.39 1.58 Heads of cattle per 1000 people 2005 235 241 197 198 132 196 Percentage of urban population 2011 14.43 9.68 19.79 3.68 7.85 11.3 Source: ADRI (undated); Government of Bihar (2013); Mishra (2012); Singh and Tiwari (undated) Second, we randomly selected four blocks from each district and four gram panchayats (GPs) from each selected block.