Energy deprivation of Indian households: evidence from NSSO data

This study examines the patterns of domestic energy consumption of households in India over the period of past two and half decades. The analysis shows that the use of energy varies across rural and urban households and also across the categories of low and high income groups. Although increase in income is accompanied with the change in household’s fuel mix but total disappearance of fuel-wood for cooking purpose is uncommon. Households wait for threshold level of income in order to change their cooking energy preferences but their lighting energy preferences change constantly with income. Further, a puzzling pattern is noticed that monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) and average calorie intake from energy sources move in opposite directions in the considered second decade of the study which this paper intends to explain. Further, this paper makes an attempt to estimate Gini Coefficients to measure energy inequality in terms of energy consumption and expenditure. This is revealed that inequality is high in the consumption of LPG in rural areas and that of electricity in urban areas. In addition to this, various methods for estimating the energy poverty are also examined. Each one leads to the conclusion that energy poverty was sharply declined in India in the period 1999-00 and then suddenly increased in 2011-12.