Solar Study Lamps target to brighten 1 Million Lives: Experimental evidence from Pilot project in India

Abstract

Lack of sufficient lighting severely sabotage children’s ability to study after-school in the evening at home in rural India and therefore, restricts their academic performance in the classrooms. It is expected that 81.2 million students are likely to use kerosene for their basic lighting needs, which restrict their study through lower lumen lighting, indoor air pollution, and negative health impacts. This paper based on the million SoUL program (MSP) survey of 873 households examine that the luminous, clean, cost-effective, and safe light of solar study lamps enhances children’s study hours, reduces kerosene consumptions for lighting and improvement in total electricity expenditure. K-mean cluster analysis was conducted to identify the group of children based on total study time for baseline and impact. The findings show that a significant number of children moves towards higher study time group for impact compared to baseline.