The political economy of public utilities : a study of the Indian power sector (original) (raw)

Power Steering: the Politics of Utility Privatization in India

iv Acknowledgments This dissertation was produced with the advice and support of many others. My supervisors, Catherine Boone and Sumit Ganguly, pushed me to refine the intellectual project and gave me the tools to begin the task. Many others at the University of Texas and elsewhere were extraordinarily generous with their time and insights, in particular

Distinctively Dysfunctional: State Capitalism 2.0 and the Indian Power Sector

Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles: New Perspectives on the Indian State, ed. Anthony D'Costa and Achin Chakraborty

State intervention in India has persisted but has proved far from immune to critiques of traditional dirigisme. An examination of the power sector shows that waves of reforms since 1991 have together created a hybrid and regionally differentiated state-market system. Blurring the public-private boundary, this reinvented “state capitalism 2.0” displays both refurbished modes of intervention and new governance arrangements with private players. Nonetheless, as the power sector’s continually dismal condition suggests, this state-capitalist hybrid has not (yet) provided a coherent alternative to older dirigisme or the Anglo-American mode of “deregulatory” liberalization. Instead, between 1991 and 2014 its ad hoc, layered emergence generated distinctive forms of dysfunction. Coupled with competitive politics, its ever-increasing institutional complexity rendered it internally incoherent and vulnerable to rent seeking on multiple fronts. Power sector evidence suggests that state intervention in India has remained simultaneously indispensable and dogged by persistent administrative and financial difficulties. Examining its internal institutional transformations helps to explain the apparently contradictory nature of the contemporary Indian state: at once business-friendly, populist, and often underperforming. For the complete volume, see https://www.springer.com/in/book/9789811368905

NEOLIBERALISM AND CONTESTED POLICIES OF THE POWER INDUSTRY IN INDIA

2007

This paper, adopting a political-economy approach, examines the evolution of electric-power policy in India by drawing linkages between global and local/national discourses, of development. The study focuses on the objectives and goals of the post-colonial developmental state of India, and examines the transition of India's electricity policy regime from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. I argue that the historically dynamic nature of state-society coalition in India, representing varying social and spatial interests, has impacted India's power policy. In addition, I argue that even as neoliberalism at the global level is pushed forth under the rhetoric of free market, global corporations, in collaboration with Global Governance Institutions, demand guarantee of profits and incentives from local/national governments that violate the principle of free competition.

The Political Economy of Public Distribution System in India

There is a broad-based trend of improvement in most of the states due to initiatives to make the system work - expansion of PDS coverage, reduction in PDS prices, computerisation, doorstep delivery ofgrain, deprivatization of ration shops, and community management of FPS, setting up proper channels for grievance redressal and raising FPS commissions. An important part ofthe revival is the new political will to make the PDS work and strengthen the demand side by increasing the coverage and raising the stake ofbeneficiaries in a well-functioning PDS system

Power Politics: Process of Power Sector Reform in India

2001

Power sector policy in India appears to have locked itself into adverse arrangements at least twice in the recent period. The first was when agricultural consumption was de-metered and extensive subsidies were offered; the second when Independent Power Producer contracts with major fiscal implications were signed by the State Electricity Boards. A third set of circumstances, with the potential for equally powerful forms of institutional lock-in, appears to be in the making with the reproduction of the Orissa model on the national scale. This paper provides an analysis of the social and political context in which power sector reforms have taken place in India. While a state-led power sector has been responsible for substantial failures, is the design of the reformed sector tell aimed at balancing efficiency andprofit-making on the one hand and the public interest on the other? The discussion of the forces and actors that have shaped the reform processes is intended to contribute to an understanding of how the public interest can best be served in the ongoing effort to reshape the power sector.

Vested interests: Examining the political obstacles to power sector reform in twenty Indian states

Energy Research & Social Science, 2020

Why do power sector reform succeed and fail in democratic contexts? We conduct comparative case studies of these reforms in the largest 20 Indian states. These states have responded to India's electricity generation, transmission, and distribution crises in different ways. Similar to conventional case studies, our research design has the virtue of allowing us to explore historical processes. However, having a large number of cases also enables us to consider multiple causal factors at the same time. Both the findings and non-findings speak to the broad debate on the possible causes of reform failure. We find support for hypotheses emphasizing electoral opportunism and the politics of interest group (organized labor, agricultural interests). In contrast, partisan cleavages do not seem to explain reform failure. These findings offer new insights into politically feasible reform strategies for India.

Power-Hungry: The State and the Troubled Transition in Indian Electricity

Indian Capitalism in Development, ed. Barbara Harriss-White and Judith Heyer, 2014

India’s pre-liberalization power policy was characterized by vast subsidies for irrigated agriculture, widespread theft, scarcity, and underinvestment. With regional variations, this description also fits the contemporary power sector. Electricity is critical for capital accumulation – making its comparative neglect in the study of development all the more egregious – and we would intuitively expect India’s contemporary pro-business state to alter policy to benefit ‘India Inc’. The power sector was indeed one of the first selected for reform in 1991, yet the pro-business policy transition has substantially failed. What can this failure tell us about the contemporary Indian state and its relationship with capitalist development?

Political Economy of Distribution Reforms In Indian Electricity

Despite sustained efforts to reform the sector, electricity distribution in India remains amidst complex problems, manifested in the form of loss-making distribution utilities, poor quality of service, governance ambiguities, and absence of basic data. The current wave of reforms seeks to turnaround the sector’s performance by transforming the generation mix, strengthening the network infrastructure, ensuring universal access and better consumer experience, and financial revival of discoms. While policy signals from the centre appear to be promising and ambitious, given the past records, execution of these reform plans at the state level is uncertain. Against this backdrop, the paper analyses the distribution reform initiated from the centre and the role played by the central government in shaping ideas and stimulating change at the state level. Looking into various diagnoses of the challenges and subsequent reform initiatives, the paper seeks to explain the political economy of successive reform attempts and their outcomes. It also identifies gaps in the current wave of reforms and raises questions for further exploration.