Access to electricity benefited larger, populous villages disproportionately more than hamlets with fewer households, an analysis of the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyut Yojana – a programme launched in 2005 to provide and improve electricity access to roughly 4,00,000 Indian villages. Villages with fewer than 300 people saw limited benefits as opposed to those with 1,000 but the gains jumped dramatically in villages that had 2,000 or more people, the analysis by researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Maryland states.
Per-capita monthly expenditure in villages of about 300 people barely changed. However, larger villages (of about 2,000 people), saw a doubling of per-capita expenditure due to full electrification, an increase of about ₹1,428 (about $17) per month, the study, which relied on statistical analysis of public data, says.
“It’s clear that electricity access boosts GDP at the national level, but does it necessarily improve the lives of those living in small communities? We found the answer to be ‘no,’” co-author Fiona Burlig, an assistant professor at the Chicago university’s Harris School of Public Policy, said in a statement.
“While we see large benefits to larger villages, bringing electricity access to the smallest, remote villages is expensive, and it doesn’t necessarily lift them out of poverty. It may well be much more cost-effective to do smaller solar home systems or minigrids in small, remote locations and expand the grid to the larger villages,” she added.