Access to modern energy services and human development in India: Has government policies paid off?

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the relationship between access to modern energy services and human development in India over a decade. We estimate an index of human development, multidimensional energy poverty index, and confidence index. Empirical result shows that energy poverty is quite widespread in most of the states in spite of the progress made in reducing the same during the study period. States with higher level of human development are having lower level of energy poverty implying a strong negative correlation between energy poverty and human development. Further, the strength of negative relationship between energy poverty and human development has strengthened during the study period. Among the components of human development, energy poverty has highest impact on GSDP percapita index followed by education index and life expectancy index. The study also finds that confidence index has positive relationship with human development index, whereas negative relationship with energy poverty. © 2021, Econjournals. All rights reserved.