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Energy Subsidies in India

The GSI’s India country program undertakes research and policy engagement on energy subsidies for fuel consumers, fuel producers and renewable energy.

Research

Objectives
  • Reduce overall fossil fuel subsidy expenditure
  • Improve the progressive social distribution of subsidy expenditure
  • Increase clean energy access and use, particularly among poorer households

A lack of critical debate about India's solar energy subsidies?

February 7, 2011 | Priti Patnaik , Christopher Beaton
This January, Deepak Gupta, the Secretary for India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), reaffirmed plans to install 20 Gigawatts (GW) of solar power by 2022, calling it “perhaps the biggest target in the world”. This follows a number of statements made by Dr Kirit S. Parikh, the author of a government-commissioned report last year, recommending that the country “boost” solar power capacity.

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The Real Reasons Behind India's Reluctance to Liberalize Petroleum Prices

May 17, 2010 | Bhamy V Shenoy
In just four years the Indian government has had three high-level committees recommend how petroleum product prices should be determined. All three have shared the same general conclusions: the government should reform fuel-price subsidies and use other, more effective policies to improve the welfare of the poor. But the reality behind India's reluctance to liberalize prices is not a lack of good policy advice.

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The Tough Politics of Energy Subsidy

October 10, 2009 | David G. Victor
Governments spend staggering sums of money subsidizing energy—in particular fossil fuels, but increasingly also other forms of energy such as renewables.  The latest global assessment, published last year by the International Energy Agency, puts the total energy subsidy at far more than US$300 billion annually.

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Commentary: The Nano-flyover syndrome

When the world's richest Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, recently visited Kolkata, the city of his youth, he was thrilled to see change. Mittal told the media that the biggest difference he saw was the many flyovers dotting the city skyline and "disciplined traffic". This is great progress, he told journalists, who promptly reported that the tycoon had given the city's road and traffic management a big thumbs up.

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