Access to electricity makes women more empowered as it is associated with greater job participation, education, health and exposure to electronic media. According to a new World Bank study, Access to electricity is associated with significant improvement in women empowerment. It also says that Women’s bargaining power increases by 7-10 percentage points because of electrification.

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Findings in the report:

• In the study, Hussain Samad and Fan Zhang analyse data from the 2011-12 India Human Development Survey, covering more than 40,000 households and 200,000 individuals, and find that access to electricity is associated with significant improvement in women empowerment.
• They find that this index increases by as much as 11 percentage points with improved access to electricity.
• Women’s bargaining power, primary involving her own well-being such as travelling alone, having a bank account and participating in social groups, increases by 7-10 percentage points because of electrification

Electrification and women empowerment:

• Social empowerment: Access to electricity makes women more empowered as it is associated with greater job participation, education, health and exposure to electronic media, all of which are enabling factors for improved autonomy and social participation among women.
• Agriculture sector: Mechanization, Agro-processing industries, Cold storage, Drip and sprinkler irrigation will all be possible. Women’s labour force participation will increase leading to woman’s intra-household bargaining power.
• Industrialization: More jobs, less migration to urban areas thereby improving rural economy as well as society. It will give boost to small scale industries and SMEs in rural areas and would also help in revival of power looms.
• Financial inclusion: Mobile banking, banking at CSCs can empower SHGs and inturn women can be empowered. Women empowerment bringing more women to mainstream rural economy.
• Security: With feminization of agriculture mechanization is the need of the hour and for it happen electrification is quintessential. Electrification and thus street light, less grey areas would result into more secure environment helping them to attend schools, colleges, work place etc.

Challenges for electrification:

• Electricity distribution companies (DISCOMS) are already highly indebted.
• The other major challenge is from distribution network capacity. Electrification in India has followed an approach of expansion, often driven by political considerations, without much emphasis on capacity augmentation and making the grid future ready.

• As a result, the distribution infrastructure is overburdened, as the demand has grown, causing a high level of technical losses and frequent breakdowns. The distribution network capacity in several States is inadequate to carry available electricity.
• Subsequently, DISCOMS have been resorting to load shedding while their contracted generation capacities are underutilised.
• Adding new load to the existing fragile distribution network will only compromise the quality and reliability of supply. It could result in continued blackouts for the rural poor during peak hours.
• Flawed definition of rural electrification: If 10 percent household of a village is having electricity connection the village is considered as electrified. First of all this limit is too low, secondly electricity connection is different than actual electricity delivery.
• Affordability is a concern for rural populations because of distance from distribution centres and low population density, both of which drive up the price of the service.

Measures needed:

• The federal government is to push the state-run distribution companies to carry out robust ground surveys and organize frequent camps to achieve the target so that not one household is left out from electrification.
• To achieve a consistent round-the-clock power supply, considerable improvement in the operational efficiency of distributors through extensive and intensive change management and capacity-building programmes as well as strengthening of the electricity sub-stations and sub-transmission network are required.
• At the same time, electricity must be priced rationally and the tariff structure is simplified.
• Decentralized renewable energy solutions such as mini-grids and rooftop solar, where the grid can’t reach or reliably serve, and operating together is the most sustainable last-mile solution to reach consumers and achieve universal access to energy.

Conclusion:

Electrification has been shown to accelerate opportunities for women by moving them into more productive activities. Access to electricity is associated with an improvement in all five indicators viz. decision-making ability, mobility, financial autonomy, reproductive freedom and social participation.