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Christopher Bennett

Public Policy 184 Final Paper, Spring 2009

Professor Anjini Kochar

The Electricity Act of 2003: Assessing Power Sector Reform

India stands at a crossroads of development. As the world’s second-most populous state, India has a nominal per capita income of little more than $1000 a year, yet in recent years the country has boasted close to an 8% yearly growth rate (Ministry of Finance). This red-hot pace of growth poses a complex case study of the important inputs at play in economic development. Arguably, none of these is so important as how energy and environmental constraints may shape this course of development. The issue is multi-faceted, with energy shortages, electrification, emissions, transmission and distributional all affecting the contour of the Indian energy landscape. The touchstone among all these issues is the electricity sector, and more specifically, electricity sector policy and reform. The passage of the Electricity Act in 2003 was heralded by some as a watershed of gradual reform, and decried by others as a loophole-ridden and ineffective central mandate. In either case, its importance cannot be understated, and this paper aims to provide an evaluation of its implications in four sections. In the first, a high-level discussion will provide context on the current and predicted energy situation in India and the history of electricity policy and reform. In the second, the major provisions and implications of the policy will be discussed. In the third, the actual success of the policy will be evaluated with respect to subsidy reduction, privatization, and electrification/environmental provisions. In the final section, these results will be discussed, emphasizing the specific and theoretical issues at play in India’s political economy and suggestions for alternative policy design.

Section One: Introduction and Policy Context

First, the context of the electricity sector and the history of reform provide a necessary foundation for establishing the relevance of the Electricity Act. India’s development is intimately linked to electricity and energy issues. On the global level, India accounts for 5% of the world’s total energy use; India has an installed generation capacity of 112,000 megawatts, 70% of which comes from coal (Shalizi). The most salient issue in India at the moment is the widening gap between generating capacity (energy supply) and energy demand. In 2003, India’s production was 441 Million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) and its consumption was 542 Mtoe (Shalizi). This leads to a 13% peak power shortage and is worsened by transmission and distribution losses approaching 40% in some areas (Shalizi). All of this speaks to the current energy infrastructure, which does not even reach a significant proportion of the population. India has the largest number of people in any country in the world without adequate energy access, and about 40% of the population is without access to modern energy (Bhattacharyya).

Moreover, the electricity sector and environmental consequences are closely linked; the power sector accounts for 48% of emissions, the largest of any sector or

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contributor (Parikh and Parikh). There are perceived and actual trade-offs involved in reducing carbon emissions and pursuing continued development. In the most pessimistic calculations, low carbon energy strategies have been linked to foregone income and large costs to the welfare of the poor. Murthy, Panda and Parikh estimated a decrease in GDP by 4% over 30 years in attempting to reduce carbon emissions by 30% from 2000 baseline levels “through a major reorientation of the energy system” (Parikh and Parikh). However, the tradeoff is mostly synthetic, as there are strong potentials for economic development and energy sector development to coincide. A key difference is between “compulsory or forced energy” savings by the poor due to deprivation or lack of electrification, and between increases in the efficiencies of the system or reductions from the top 10% income group, which emits 12 times as much per capita each year as the lowest (Parikh and Parikh).

In Dancing with Giants, Zmarak Shalizi discusses the anticipated impact of energy shifts in the coming years. In a baseline scenario, total energy use quadruples from 515.6 Mtoe in 2005 to a projected 2,068.8 in 2050 (Shalizi). The increase is also concentrated in dirty fuel as the proportion of coal increases, quintupling carbon emissions to an estimated 3.6 Gigatons of Carbon in 2050 (Shalizi). These trends have to be managed. In a planning commission report, Kirit S. Parikh discusses how energy efficiency and demand side management are needed to meet energy and development benchmarks in the coming years. Using an 8% growth rate on a 25-year time horizon, he argues that the supply of energy is the most notable constraint to growth (K. S. Parikh). He comments that efficiency of electricity, generation, transmission, distribution, and end-use are of paramount importance in the coming years. Price reforms, subsidy removal, and privatization of electrical consumer goods offer strong opportunities for improved growth and efficiency. Exposing government-controlled sector to competition results in a move from the old subsidy regime towards rational prices. This results in a strong efficiency upgrades in appliances and electricity system (Parikh and Parikh). Another window of opportunity is the way in which new electrification may either ameliorate or worsen existing electricity supply and emissions trajectories.

Given the pivotal role of the electricity sector in meeting key development, environmental, and energy trajectories, we next move to a brief background of the history of policy and reform in the sector and the baseline of the sector before the Act’s implementation. 50 years ago the sector was almost entirely government-owned. Early reform like the Electricity Act of 1948 corrected that by federalizing the issue to state boards to promote privatization, but until 1991 the sector remained a complete state monopoly (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). Still, by the early 2000s state electricity boards (SEBs) still owned close to 90% of generating capacity and almost all of the distribution networks (Lal). State-control resulted in huge financial losses, and the cause of that was the prevalence of cross-subsidies, cheap power provided to politically important agricultural constituents (Lal). Cross-subsidies altered electrical tariff rates between sectors so greatly that by 2000, rates for industrial customers had skyrocketed to 15 times that charged to agricultural customers (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). As costs to the industrial sector spiraled, sales and revenue dwindled, so SEBs could no longer afford to pay for the power they purchased from central or independent power producers. The result of this was financial losses in all of India’s SEBs by 2000-2001. At

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the same time, transmission and distribution losses continued to escalate upwards of 25% due to technical losses, lack of metering, and large-scale theft (Singh). Both of these trends are visible in Figure 1, which portrays the staggering losses this entailed. The cost of the subsidies needed to prop of the financial health of the power sector by 2003 was equivalent to 1.5% of GDP (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik; Lal).

Figure 1: Losses of SEBs from 1993-2000. (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik)

1992-3 1993-4 1994-5 1995-6 1996-7 1997-8 1998-9 1999-2k73350 89666 109410 136060 155852 117067 206854 254409Figure 2: Cross-Subsidies for Agricultural Consumers, 1992-3 to 1999-2000, million Rs (Banerjee)

Reforms after 1991 attempted to confront cross-subsidies through increased regulation. However, Figure 2 illustrates that the trend only continued to worsen; by 2000, subsidies had more than tripled for agricultural consumers who maintained the political incentives behind the cross-subsidy regime. The Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act of 1998 urged the creation of Central and State Regulatory Commissions with the power to determine tariffs with the hope that decentralizing responsibility to state governments would solve the problem. However, these provisions were optional for states to implement. More than that, early incarnations had three key organizational flaws: collusion with central government, neglect of management training, and inadequate accountability (Nair). Prior to the Electricity Act of 2003, additional federal reform took place. The maverick state was Orissa, which in 1995-6 followed the World Bank’s advice and began the process of separating (unbundling) its SEB’s functions. By 2003, reform had diffused to other states; 22 states set up State Electricity Regulatory Commissions, 13 of these issued tariff orders, yet only 9 actually unbundled their SEBs (Singh).

Section Two: The Electricity Act of 2003

The Electricity Act of 2003 is a comprehensive attempt at electricity sector-wide reform and has important implications for the future development and success of the sector. The act includes a dizzying number of provisions prescribing changes in the role

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of government, restructuring of SEBs, rural electrification, environmental provisions, generation, transmission, distribution, tariff rates, and regulation.

The central thrust of the Electricity Act is a “move towards creating a market-based regime in the Indian power sector” (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). Structurally, the Act aims to create competition in the industry through vertical integration of the State Electricity Boards, transfer schemes to create companies from the existing SEBs, and lowered barriers to competition. This changes the previous Single-Buyer model to a Multi-Buyer model, meaning that several players can operate all the different levels (generation, transmission and distribution) of the industry at the same time, creating competition among providers where before SEBs had enjoyed monopolies (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). Other changes aim to directly lower barriers to entry for competitors; these include free entry into generation for regular and captive power with the exception of hydropower, de-licensing of thermal generation, and a wider bulk power market with open access and multiple licensing to allow competition in the ailing distribution sector. Since the distribution sector is often viewed as most pivotal to reform, the act provides for additional mechanisms for privatization, such as open access to distribution in phases as determined by the SERC. All of this provides a “less constrained market for potential investors by removing administrative hurdles” (Singh).

Second, the Act plays a role in consolidating and framing past reforms and federal state-level successes in the hands of the central government and delegating future progress to the state level (Lal). The central government maintains the right to direct the national electricity sector’s trajectory and tariffs by preparing a National Electricity Policy and Tariff Policy (Ministry of Power). The Act constitutes a Central Electricity Authority and State Regulatory Commissions, and establishes Appellate Tribunals to oversee reform progress in the country and to serve as a locus for accountability. So, the role of the regulator shifts significantly from control to monitoring; they no longer set prices but instead ensure that the “markets remain competitive and non-monopolistic and ensure development” (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik).

Arguably, the most salient feature of the Act is the several related mechanisms designed to promote the rationalization of electricity tariffs and prices through transparent policies. Under the Act, state Regulatory Commissions have the direct power to determine tariffs through contracts, and in Section 61 are explicitly mandated to progressively reduce cross-subsidies and move towards the actual price of electricity (Ministry of Power). In addition, the creation of a multi-year tariff mechanism helps to promote commercial efficiency. Within the distribution sector, the Act conditions open access based on a surcharge that aims to meet the “current level of cross subsidy in the area” (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). The goal here is to recoup current lost costs upfront but eventually to progressively reduce and eliminate both at the discretion of the State Commission.

The act contains several policy features regarding environmental constraints and rural electrification. In Section 4, the Act calls for a proposed National Policy for rural areas that will permit the use of renewable and non-conventional energy sources in consultation with States, and in Section 6 the Act lays the foundation for government action to extend the supply of electricity to all villages through local distribution in rural

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areas (Ministry of Power). This would take place within the 10th Five-Year plan, which starts in April 2002 and aims to cover all 18,000 villages by the year 2012 (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). Environmentally, the Act’s sole official position is that it recognizes “efficient and environmentally benign policies” in the Preamble as one of its objectives (Ministry of Power). Although ambiguous, the Act has one landmark policy mechanism for promoting an environmentally sound energy trajectory. The act prescribes that each State Regulatory Commission must set a target percentage for power purchased by each distribution company from non-conventional and renewable sources. This percentage must increase progressively, and bidding processes and differential tariffs mechanisms promote their adoption (Ministry of Power). Although there are no percentages set, India’s target for electricity added in the 10th plan is 10%.

Section Three: Evaluating the policy

Much of the Electricity Act is foundational, setting the framework for future gradual reform, yet the success of these aspects is not easily evaluated. This section will seek to evaluate three tangible indicators: reduction in subsidies, extent of privatization, and the implementation of environmental and electrical goals. There is very little quantitative evaluation of the Act in the literature, so this section will be based off of primary data from Government of India survey and ministry reports.

Cross-subsidies are the common culprit behind a range of structural and economic flaws in the system and a good indicator of the progress of reform in general. Prior to the Act, subsidies had been spiraling out of control for years, as visible in Figure 2 earlier. In 1994, the rate for agricultural consumers (32.5% of sales) was 19.4 paise/kWH, and for industrial consumers (32.1% of sales) it was 221.4 paise/kWH. Domestic consumers (17% of sales) received relatively low rates of 92.1 paise/kWH (Nair). Did these cross-subsidies fall in response to proactive provisions in the Electricity Act? The data is mixed. In the 2007-2008 Economic Survey, there’s a surprising level of parity in the average rates of electricity between domestic and industrial customers (agricultural data is not mentioned). This trend is visible across a broad spectrum of different distributors in various states. In some cases, such as Rural Uttar Pradesh, a large disparity is still evident, as reform has likely not impacted this state-operated distribution company at all. Yet most of the data points such as Delhi, Maharastra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh confirm close to parity regardless of private and public distribution (Ministry of Finance). However, this parity does not guarantee that the distribution companies are making enough to recoup the cost of supply, and more than that, it doesn’t include agricultural consumers who have traditionally sunk the finances of the boards. The Central Electricity Authority has published data on those two trends, and the results are discouraging. The all-India results are visible in Figure 3 below, and display two key points. First, the including agriculture column (the average of all sectors) shows that costs of supplies are greater than the amount transmission companies are making in each period, although the trend is slightly improving. Agricultural rates (paise/kWH) are still about one third of the actual cost of electricity, and most significantly, they haven’t dropped since the passage of the Act.

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Figure 3: Cost of Supply and Agricultural Rates, 2001-2 to 2006-7, (Central Electricity Authority)

Figure 4: Financial Performance of the State Power Sector, (Ministry of Finance)

Recent data on the financial health of the electricity sector and the amount of subsidies needed to sustain it confirm this trend. The Annual Planning Commission report for 2002 gives the most accurate snapshot prior to the Electricity Act. In 2001-2, commercial losses without the subsidy were -33177.00 Rs. crore (Planning Commission). The 2007-8 Economic Survey provides a sobering update, visible in Figure 4. In 2005-6, the deficit had fallen slightly to -22,773 without the subsidy, yet that rose again by 2008-9 to -26,461. More than that, the net subsidy required and total subsidy given to agricultural continued to rise within that period.

Privatization was the ultimate goal of the Electricity Act, and data on the success of private infiltration in the market as well as the changes wrought in generation, transmission, and distribution as a result can help to resolve whether it’s been successful. On one hand, with open access and less administrative hurdles, private generation has increased. The 2007-8 Survey reports that as of December 2007, 14% of installed capacity came from private sources (Ministry of Finance). However, the Electricity Act may not necessarily have spurred this. First, alternative policy schemes like the Ultra Mega Power Plants scheme may have more directly caused an increase in generation. Second, the same report shows that the energy deficit remains constant if not increasing; in 2003-4 it was 7.1%, and by 2007 it was 8.5% (Central Electricity Authority). This suggests that the increase was simply inline with increasing capacity trends, and that the policy didn’t measurably address the energy deficit. Privatization of transmission and distribution are arguably more important, as it is an indicator of readiness for future

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investment in the sector and important to the sequence of reform (Singh). The true extent of privatization in distribution is sparse and ambiguous. According to the Ministry of Power’s website, there are currently 7 private distribution companies, such as BSES, TATA power corporation, CESC, and the Ahmedabad Electricity Corporation (Ministry of Power). According to the 2007-8 Economic Survey, there are only 4 (Ministry of Finance). In any case, neither number is a significant proportion of the more than 50 state-owned corporations still in existence. The data is slightly less ambiguous about improvement in the transmission and distribution sector in general. There’s a strong trend demonstrating a reduction in transmission and distribution losses; losses fell from a high of 32.54% just before the Act’s implementation to 26.91% in 2008 (Central Electricity Authority). This is encouraging, but it’s impossible to know whether increasing privatization and resulting increases in efficiency are the cause. Any number of demand-side changes or technical improvements could just as easily explain the trend.

Figure 5: T&D Losses as a % of total; graph mine, data from (Central Electricity Authority)

As of March 2009, the Central Regulatory Authority reports India’s electrification within the 10th plan had reached 82.4% of villages (Central Electricity Authority), a noticeable increase from before 2003. This number isn’t likely due to the Act, as other major government bodies such as the Rural Electrification Corporation do most of the legwork. In “Energy access problem of the poor in India: Is rural electrification a remedy?,” S. Bhattacharyya argues that the Electricity Act has greatly facilitated the legal environment towards electrification but hasn’t produced many direct results. By requiring the government to prepare a national policy and create a framework for electricity supply in rural areas, the Act spurred a National Electricity Policy that aims to provide universal electricity access by 2010 and meet full demand by 2012 (Bhattacharyya). The main vehicle of this program will be an attempt to install at least one distribution transformer in each village within five years through a large upfront government grant and local management system. This program has some serious issues, however; the progress is state-driven, so those not already implementing the Act are unlikely to implement the program, its commercial viability is not tested, and it may not be sustainably funded with a price tag of $3.8 billion (Bhattacharyya). So, the Act clearly played an indirect facilitative role, but can’t yet be attributed to any large-scale success in electrification. Environmental success is very mixed. Increases in coal generation have continued due to the urgency of India’s supply deficit, clearly violating the “environmentally benign” objective; since an actual backbone of distribution hasn’t been established in villages (an

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electrified pump alone counts for village electrification), clean energy hasn’t yet been established in new rural areas. The bright spot is the adoption of effective renewable portfolio standards of up to 10% in ten of the twenty-nine states, including Maharastra, Kerala, and Rajahstan, as a direct result of the provisions in the Act (Global Wind Energy Council).

Section Four: Policy Design and Alternatives

The result of the policy ultimately reflects on the way it was designed. In this last section, the successful and unsuccessful elements of design will be discussed and related to the larger context and possible alternatives in the literature.

As the evaluation section stresses, the most tangible indicators of the Act all display inconsistent success in the three areas evaluated. Madhav Godbole argues that a move towards unconditional state regulation was a poor idea, and exposed much of the ailing sector to perverse incentives that either perpetuated or worsened existing local conditions and prevented effective decreases in tariffs or increase in privatization. Again, the Act requires that deliberative local Regulatory Committees determine tariff rates and contracts rather than statutorily through state government boards. Godbole argues that this political rather than statutory process is not an improvement on the earlier situation on three levels: first, political contracts may more easily be abrogated than statutory conflicts; second, the pricing of tariffs will become even more controversial and exposed to the will of powerful political interests and groups interested in maintaining the cross-subsidy regime; third, contracting decisions may become even more arbitrary than under previous statutory conditions (Godbole). Additionally, despite the Act’s attempts to increase central accountability and transparency through central and state commissions and tribunals, these institutions are poorly designed to check the inefficient behavior described earlier. There are no clear provisions requiring transparency on the part of state Regulatory Commissions, so their decisions may be just as impervious to public scrutiny as earlier structures. The Act does not adequately account for corruption and nepotism, as it fails to provide a bar against the reappointment of any member or chairperson on the same or any other commission (Godbole). Second, what the act did not include was just as significant as it did with regards to the success of all three indicators. In the case of tariffs, the Act didn’t have any teeth to force change; it did not specify a time frame or accountability mechanism for the elimination of cross-subsidies on the federal level. There was a comparable lack of clear benchmarks to encourage the entrance of private investment through free entry in generation and especially open access in distribution. This was worsened through transmission bottlenecks preventing open access to transmission and network pricing complexities and spikes discouraging entry to generation. The omissions of key deadlines and detail is most blatant for environmental and electrification provisions. The Act’s detail in this regard amount to little more than delegation to a national level plan and suggestions on how states should behave (Thakur, Deshmukh and Kaushik). The Act produced results commensurate to the explicitness of its recommendations, and no more.

In addition to its specific design problems, the mixed success of the Act is emblematic of a greater trend in the Indian political economy. Sumir Lal explains the root causes of the rhetoric-implementation gap in power sector reform. Lal argues that

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political reformers come to power through speaking to one audience, the policy and financial elite, but are ultimately accountable to another, their political constituencies. Once in power, enacting direct reform becomes exceptionally difficult for three key reasons. First, future reform is not credible enough to counteract the upfront loss of an existing subsidy to politically connected farmers; second, corruption and anti-reform resistance from utility staff, bureaucracy, and the political class confronts the policy; and third, political will evaporates as reform has no “visible political allies” (Lal). This phenomenon is reflected in the literature on economic institutions; once actors gain political power, they have an incentive to change the distribution of resources in their own favor, resulting in a fundamental commitment problem (Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson). Moreover, literature on economic privatization emphasizes the agency problems that a scheme like the Act will face in a developing context. Hasty privatization is supposed to tame political intrusion in the market, but as Godbole argues, actually provides “an additional instrument by which special interests and political powers could maintain their power” (Stiglitz).

However, assessing the true success of the policy on a tangible evaluation alone is faulty in the case of a foundational policy such as the Electricity Act. Lal argues that the Electricity Act played a pivotal role in framing policy through the center, “legislating the reform agenda attempted since the mid-1990s” and creating an environment conducive to country-wide power sector reform by putting pressure on the SEBs (Lal). The fact that the Act doesn’t have teeth to force reform on a state level reflects common interests between the center and states. Still, the Act is emblematic of a vein of “stealthy gradualism” (Lal). Even if there is some room for optimism, the time may have come for a more direct approach to confront the underlying political blocs and interests standing in the way of privatization.

A better policy design should focus on accounting for incentives in the power sector in three areas. First, a successful attempt at privatization should aggressively and more explicitly confront the current subsidy regime that ties together the current inefficiencies in the power sector. Top-down strategies include forcing key targets and deadlines for the elimination of cross-subsidies by state regulatory commissions. Bottom up approaches could include confronting the subsidy regime through targeted communication with agricultural constituents and the creation of a multi-sector “package deal” across agricultural, water, power, and credit sectors to increase the incentives and credibility of reform (Lal). Another option is to create a pro-reform constituency by engaging those disadvantaged by the subsidy system. Local democracy is a neglected “institutional base of political participation” in India with past success, and coalition building could help to confront the subsidy regime directly (Sen). Confronting improvement of distribution segments is the key to long-term privatization and improvement of the power sector, so once subsidy regimes are truly on the decline, an incremental privatization program can begin in earnest (Singh).

Second, a future iteration should explicitly account for electrification and environmental issues that will determine the long-term viability of the policy. As Shalizi and Parikh argued earlier, the trajectory of electrification and clean energy will become pivotal in either making or breaking India’s sustainable development goals. The Act

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should explicitly detail a timeline and state benchmarks for creating a national mechanism for electrification or renewable energy. Third, it should also account for the demand-side issues at play behind transmission and distribution issues, an issue that the Act entirely skirted. Consumers face especially strong demand side economic and political constraints in consuming electricity in a developing context. The success of reform beginning with or involving the transmission and distribution sector may hinge on this point. Frank Wolak argues that traditional demand-side mechanisms are invalid in a developing context; hourly metering is close to impossible because of the labor costs associated with the process and the fact that most customers wouldn’t pass a net-benefit test as to whether or not measuring their consumption is worthwhile (Wolak). Most consumers do not pay their bills, and social norms in India lend credence to large-scale theft given the perceived corruption of the power sector. Wolak recommends group payment programs for electricity bills as consumers in a given area typically take their energy from the same high voltage transmission networks (Wolak). This would allocate liability for wholesale energy at a group level, reducing the likelihood of theft and free riding through social pressure. In turn, it would also eliminate some of the seemingly intractable problems at play in the financial viability of further privatization. Wolak makes the point that without a fundamental shift in consumer behavior through changed norms, it is unlikely large-scale private investment will take hold, and it is doubtful that even government money on the sector is being well spent.

Works CitedAcemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and Rames Robinson. "Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth." Aghion, Phillipe and Steven N Durlauf. The Handbook of Economic Growth. Vol. 1A. Elsevier, 2004.

Banerjee, Bani P. Handbook of Energy and the Environment in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Central Electricity Authority. "Monthly Review of Power Sector." 2009. Ministry of Power, Government of India. 01 June 2009 <http://www.cea.nic.in/>.

Global Wind Energy Council. "Renewable Energy in India." 2009. Global Wind Energy Council. 03 June 2009 <http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=124>.

Godbole, Madhav. "Electricity Act, 2003: Questionable Wisdom." Economic and Political Weekly 38.39 (2003): 4104-4110.

Lal, Sumir. Can Good Economics Ever Be Good Politics? Case Study of India's Power Sector . World Bank and the IBRD. Washington, DC: The World Bank , 2006.

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Ministry of Power. "Electricity Act of 2003." 2008. Ministry of Power, Government of India. 20 May 2009 <http://www.powermin.nic.in/JSP_SERVLETS/internal.jsp>.

Nair, S.K.N. "Energy Infrastructure in India: Assessing Power Needs." Audinet, Pierre, P.R. Shukla and Frederic Grare. India's Energy: Essays on Sustainable Development. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2000. 69-83.

Parikh, Jytoti K and Parikh, Kirit S. "Climate Change: India's Perceptions, Positions, Policies, and Possibilities." OECD, 2002.

Parikh, Kirit S. "Energy Needs, Options and Environmental Consequences." Government of India, 2006.

Planning Commission. The Working of State Electricity Boards & Electricity Departments. Government of India. New Delhi: Government of India, 2002.

Sen and Dreze. "Public Action and Social Inequality." Press, Oxford University. India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. 87-108.

Shalizi, Zmarak. Dancing With The Giants, Chapter 5: Energy and Emissions. The World Bank Group and the Insitute for Policy Studies. Washington, DC: WBG and IPS, 2007.

Singh, Anoop. "Power sector reform in India: current issues and prospects." Energy Policy 34 (2006): 2480-2490.

Stiglitz, Joseph. "Whither Reform- 10 Years of the Transition." Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics. Ed. Boris Pleskovic and Joseph E Stiglitz. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1999.

Thakur, Tripta, et al. "Impact Assessment of the Electricity Act 2003 on the Indian power sector." Energy Policy 33 (2005): 1187-1198.

Wolak, Frank A. "Managing Demand-Side Economic and Political Constraints on Electricity Industry Re-strucutring Process." Stanford University, 2008.

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