Regional disparity in energy poverty: A spatial analysis of Odisha

Energy poverty is one of the major deprivations that has direct effect on the well-being of a household at micro level. At macro level, it also has significant effect and hinders the sustainable development of a nation. The binary measurement, commonly used to identify the energy poor population, has major drawbacks as it only takes accessibility of the services into consideration, whereas, in the contemporary period more emphasis should be on the affordability, quality, reliability and legal implications of energy services. The present study, therefore, tries to estimate the energy poverty condition by following a multi-dimensional approach and also tries to identify the actual energy poor by analysing the spatial disparity prevalent in the state of Odisha. A multidimensional framework is used to capture different aspects of energy provisioning at household level and an energy poverty index is constructed by assigning equal weights for the parameters. Spatial disparity is measured by considering proxies for the social parameters and following Gini’s coefficient of disparity measurement. The results indicated persistence of disparity in energy poverty at regional, inter and intra-district levels.