Participatory rural energy planning in India — a policy context

The problems of fuel insufficiency, over exploitation of biomass resources and poor reliability and quality of energy services available to the rural masses of India continues despite numerous initiatives by the government. These initiatives have largely been in the form of national level rural and renewable energy programmes aimed at improving peopleʹs quality of life and reducing the existing pressure on the natural resource base. The programmes have met with limited success on account of several reasons. One of these is the absence of a mechanism for ensuring the genuine participation of the local inhabitants. With this weakness in mind, the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) and the University of Waterloo (UW) undertook a joint research project (1994–1997), aimed at developing participatory planning and intervention design methodologies and tools to facilitate public participation and feature a meaningful role for women in rural energy planning. This paper presents the policy implications and recommendations of the work.