IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v29y2014icp1-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utility reforms in developing countries: Learning from the experiences of Delhi

Author

Listed:
  • Srivastava, Govind
  • Kathuria, Vinish

Abstract

The power sector reforms of Delhi, the capital of India presents an interesting case in the evolution of power sector reforms in India, targeting improvements in distribution side. The Delhi reform design has benefitted from the experience of an earlier partially successful experiment in the state of Orissa. The reform format has tried many new ideas such as defining Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses, auctioning of Discoms based on highest AT&C loss reduction, direct privatization and transitory support provision. In the span of a little more than a decade from the year 2002, there has been tangible progress on many fronts. Other utilities planning the reforms may benefit from this experience. However, newer challenges such as an unexpected increase in power purchase costs with limited scope of passing these costs to the end customers seem to have emerged in the recent years. The paper ends with a cautionary note that for any utility not having access to lower cost power, the distribution reforms will reach a dead-end unless a competitive market is created at the generation side too.

Suggested Citation

  • Srivastava, Govind & Kathuria, Vinish, 2014. "Utility reforms in developing countries: Learning from the experiences of Delhi," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2013.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178713000751
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2013.12.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimiliano Calì & Carlo Menon, 2013. "Does Urbanization Affect Rural Poverty? Evidence from Indian Districts," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(2), pages 171-201.
    2. Tonci Bakovic & Bernard Tenenbaum & Fiona Woolf, 2003. "Regulation by Contract : A New Way to Privatize Electricity Distribution?," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15078.
    3. Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Evaluating the evidence on electricity reform: Lessons for the South East Europe (SEE) market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 13-23, March.
    4. Torstein Bye & Einar Hope, 2005. "Deregulation of electricity markets : The Norwegian experience," Discussion Papers 433, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    5. Bhattacharyya, Subhes C., 2007. "Power sector reform in South Asia: Why slow and limited so far?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 317-332, January.
    6. Shukla, Umesh Kumar & Thampy, Ashok, 2011. "Analysis of competition and market power in the wholesale electricity market in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2699-2710, May.
    7. Totare, Ninad P. & Pandit, Shubha, 2010. "Power sector reform in Maharashtra, India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 7082-7092, November.
    8. de Oliveira, Adilson & MacKerron, Gordon, 1992. "Is the World Bank approach to structural reform supported by experience of electricity privatization in the UK?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 153-162, February.
    9. Price, Catherine Waddams & Pham, Khac, 2009. "The impact of electricity market reform on consumers," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 43-48, March.
    10. Paul L. Joskow, 2008. "Lessons Learned From Electricity Market Liberalization," The Energy Journal, , vol. 29(2_suppl), pages 9-42, December.
    11. Sharma, D. Parameswara & Nair, P. S. Chandramohanan & Balasubramanian, R., 2005. "Performance of Indian power sector during a decade under restructuring: a critique," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 563-576, March.
    12. Ruet, Joel, 2006. "Optimal timing in the privatisation of a utility in an emerging country: the case of electricity distribution in Delhi," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(17), pages 2702-2718, November.
    13. Galal, Ahmed, 1990. "Does divestiture matter : a framework for learning from experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 475, The World Bank.
    14. Joseph, Kelli L., 2010. "The politics of power: Electricity reform in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 503-511, January.
    15. Daniele Checchi & Massimo Florio & Jorge Carrera, 2009. "Privatisation Discontent and Utility Reform in Latin America," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 333-350.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdullah, Fahad Bin & Arsalan Aqeeq, Muhammad & Iqbal, Rizwan & Abdullah, Maria & Memon, Falak Shad, 2024. "Enhancing electricity distribution efficiency in Pakistan: A framework for progress and action," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Bhatt, Brijesh & Singh, Anoop, 2021. "Power sector reforms and technology adoption in the Indian electricity distribution sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(PA).
    3. Gunther Bensch, 2019. "The effects of market-based reforms on access to electricity in developing countries: a systematic review," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 165-188, April.
    4. Vinish Kathuria, 2018. "Does Environmental Governance Matter for Foreign Direct Investment? Testing the Pollution Haven Hypothesis for Indian States," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 35(1), pages 81-107, March.
    5. Srivastava, Govind & Kathuria, Vinish, 2020. "Impact of corporate governance norms on the performance of Indian utilities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    6. Kathuria, Vinish, 2021. "Impact of institutional reforms on the performance of distribution utilities in India – A dynamic panel data analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Nihit Goyal, 2021. "Limited Demand or Unreliable Supply? A Bibliometric Review and Computational Text Analysis of Research on Energy Policy in India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-23, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Verma, Mandhir Kumar & Mukherjee, V. & Kumar Yadav, Vinod & Ghosh, Santosh, 2020. "Indian power distribution sector reforms: A critical review," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Erdogdu, Erkan, 2013. "Essays on Electricity Market Reforms: A Cross-Country Applied Approach," MPRA Paper 47139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda Timilsina & Michael Toman, 2014. "Energy Sector Reform, Economic Efficiency and Poverty Reduction," Discussion Papers Series 529, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    4. Erdogdu, Erkan, 2010. "Electricity Market Reform: Lessons for developing countries," MPRA Paper 27317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Mukherjee, Shilpi & Dhingra, Tarun & Sengupta, Anirban, 2017. "Status of Electricity Act, 2003: A systematic review of literature," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 237-248.
    6. Rabindra, Nepal & Tooraj, Jamasb, 2013. "Caught Between Theory and Practice: Government, Market, and Regulatory Failure in Electricity Sector Reforms," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-22, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Tankha, Sunil & Misal, Annasahed B. & Fuller, Boyd W., 2010. "Getting reforms done in inhospitable institutional environments: untying a Gordian Knot in India's power distribution sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 7121-7129, November.
    8. Tooraj Jamasb & Rabindra Nepal & Govinda R. Timilsina, 2017. "A Quarter Century Effort Yet to Come of Age: A Survey of Electricity Sector Reform in Developing Countries," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    9. Kundu, Goutam Kumar & Mishra, Bidhu Bhusan, 2011. "Impact of reform and privatization on consumers: A case study of power sector reform in Orissa, India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3537-3549, June.
    10. Upreti, Naveen & Sunder, Raju Ganesh & Dalei, Narendra N. & Garg, Sandeep, 2018. "Challenges of India's power transmission system," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 129-141.
    11. Srivastava, Govind & Kathuria, Vinish, 2020. "Impact of corporate governance norms on the performance of Indian utilities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    12. Gencer, Busra & Larsen, Erik Reimer & van Ackere, Ann, 2020. "Understanding the coevolution of electricity markets and regulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Moreno, Blanca & López, Ana J. & García-Álvarez, María Teresa, 2012. "The electricity prices in the European Union. The role of renewable energies and regulatory electric market reforms," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 307-313.
    14. Erdogdu, Erkan, 2013. "A cross-country analysis of electricity market reforms: Potential contribution of New Institutional Economics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 239-251.
    15. Dzikri Firmansyah Hakam, 2018. "Market Power Modelling in Electricity Market: A Critical Review," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 8(5), pages 347-356.
    16. Ghosh, Ranjan & Kathuria, Vinish, 2014. "The transaction costs driving captive power generation: Evidence from India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 179-188.
    17. Ahmed, Tauqir & Bhatti, Arshad Ali, 2019. "Do power sector reforms affect electricity prices in selected Asian countries?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 1253-1260.
    18. Jain, Ritika & Nandan, Amit, 2020. "Electricity prices and firms' decisions and outcomes: The case of India after a decade of the Electricity Act," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Anupama Sen & Rabindra Nepal & Tooraj Jamasb, 2016. "Rethinking electricity sector reform in developing Asia: Balancing economic and environmental objectives," ASARC Working Papers 2016-06, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    20. Zorana Božić & Dušan Dobromirov & Jovana Arsić & Mladen Radišić & Beata Ślusarczyk, 2020. "Power Exchange Prices: Comparison of Volatility in European Markets," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-15, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:29:y:2014:i:c:p:1-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.