As per Electricity Access in India and Benchmarking Distribution Utilities report prepared by the NITI Aayog, Ministry of Power, Rockefeller Foundation, and Smart Power India, government needs to invest in electricity distribution infrastructure with focus on improving reliability and quality of supply.
The report also recommends government to enable direct transfer of subsidies, digitalise the metering, billing, and collection (MBC) cycle and enable capacity building of regulatory commissions to resolve utility viability challenges on account of widening cost coverage. The report is based on a primary survey conducted across 10 states, representing about 65 per cent of the total rural population of India and with a sample size of over 25,000, including households, commercial enterprises and institutions and assesses 25 distribution utilities. As per the report, 87 per cent of the surveyed customers have access to grid-based electricity. The remaining 13 per cent either use non-grid sources or don’t use any electricity at all.