Cost benchmarking of Indian electric distribution utilities based on Data Envelopment Analysis

This paper presents a framework for accessing comparative efficiencies of Indian State Electricity Boards (SEBs), which have been responsible for managing the Indian power sector for the past 50 years. SEB performances were evaluated using the non-parametric technique Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and the impact of scale of operation on the efficiency scores was also evaluated. The results indicate that the performance of several SEBs is sub-optimal, suggesting the potential for significant cost reductions.