IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v101y2026ics0957178726001001.html

Gujarat's power sector interventions as a blueprint for revitalizing India's DISCOMs

Author

Listed:
  • Shivahare, Jai Prakash

Abstract

Affordable, reliable and sustained availability of electricity is now a necessity for economic growth, yet India's distribution utilities continue to face persistent financial and operational stress despite wider power sector reforms. Within this dismal picture of failed distribution reforms lies the success story of the outliers. The distribution utilities in the state of Gujarat have outperformed the rest of the country, despite facing the same fundamental issues that affect distribution utilities nationwide. This study identifies several approaches adopted by Gujarat utilities that differ fundamentally from those of other states. The analysis finds that by leveraging investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure, digital platforms, and driving a self-reinforcing cycle of strategic administrative reforms that enhance efficiency and reliability, the state has achieved its goal — delivering affordable and reliable electricity through a viable state-run distribution utility. These insights enable the extraction of valuable lessons that other distribution utilities can adopt to overcome their current financial and operational vulnerabilities and move toward a more sustainable, efficient power distribution system.

Suggested Citation

  • Shivahare, Jai Prakash, 2026. "Gujarat's power sector interventions as a blueprint for revitalizing India's DISCOMs," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:101:y:2026:i:c:s0957178726001001
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2026.102241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178726001001
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2026.102241?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:101:y:2026:i:c:s0957178726001001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.