Energy-microfinance intervention for below poverty line households in India

Abstract

More than 72% of India's population resides in rural India 1 1 Census of India: http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/India_at_glance/rural.aspx (Last accessed on: 01/01/2008). and it also has a high concentration of people living under abject poverty. Of the total rural population 27.1–28.3% lives below the poverty line 2 2 In 1992, the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, undertook the task of identifying below poverty line households in rural India through periodic (approximately five-yearly) village censuses ( Jalan and Murgai, 2007). (BPL). A lack of energy-finance options is hampering the “quality of life” of the BPL community. The members of this disadvantaged household which forms 27.1% and 23.6% of the India's rural and urban population 3 3 The poverty ratio is as of the year 1999–00 ( Source: Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, http://www.indiastat.com). has no ready access to mainstream finance or know—how of sustainable energy products nor do they have access to energy service providing agency. This lack of energy-finance options has provided the marginalized population little means to break the conventional energy paradigm and the corresponding poverty cycle. Considering the afore-mentioned problem we propose an energy-microfinance intervention or a model that encompasses two independent entities. One has an energy expertise and the other possesses finance management skills. Alternately, we also propose a special purpose entity that comprises of these two entities. This entity fosters different institutional, technical and financial engineering approaches to the provision of energy, finance and infrastructure services necessary for poverty alleviation.