Energy poverty is one of the challenges faced by India and beyond. It is the result of poverty as well as a contributing factor perpetuating poverty by depriving the poor of modern infrastructure for economic and human development. Approximately 412 million people in India live without access to electricity and 668 million people depend on traditional biomass for cooking (WEO 2007). These numbers take about a quarter of people in energy poverty worldwide; 1.5 billion people in developing countries have no access to electricity and 3 billion people rely on the solid fuels for cooking (UNDP 2009).

Recognising importance of energy poverty to enhance human welfare and to curb climate change, there is increasing dialogues in both national and international policy arena. In particular, the leaders of the G20 in Pittsburgh in 2009 urged to increase access to energy by deployment of clean, affordable energy resources to the developing world. The Government of India has initiated and implemented various policies and programmes, notably “Power for All by 2012” initiative by the Ministry of Power, to provide access to and promote modern and cleaner energy in the rural area under the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012).

The IEA has contributed to informing the debate and fostering constructive discussions on this issue for many years. Since the launch of the “Energy and Poverty” chapter in 2002, the World Energy Outlook has devoted attention to the energy and development issue, developing a series of databases and quantitative analysis with projections of how the transition to modern energy services in Developing countries might take place. WEO 2007 included a special chapter focusing on energy poverty in India and in WEO 2009 the Electricity Access Database was updated with the latest information on electricity access in the world, by region and by country. An in-depth study on Universal Energy Access is ongoing, for publication in WEO 2010.