'Availability' and/or 'Affordability':What matters in household energy access in India?

While access to cleaner fuel is a sustainable development goal, the transition from traditional to modern fuel is yet to be achieved in India. This paper estimates fuel costs associated with such transitions and analyses the determinants of access to electricity for lighting and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) for cooking. State-level regression models based on data from 61st (2004-05), 68th (2011-12) and 71st (2014) rounds of National Sample Survey are used. While energy expenditures are found to be comparable for kerosene and electricity for lighting, it increases 3.6-8.8-fold for transition to LPG from traditional fuel. Availability is important for greater uptake of electricity i.e. higher rate of electrification helps, but the same is not true for LPG. While untargeted tariff subsidy leads to significant budgetary pressure, it doesn't affect the access. States with higher income and literacy rate/women empowerment have greater access to LPG and electricity. This shows while Indian energy policies always focused on removal of supply-side barriers through infrastructure creation, removal of first cost barrier and subsidizing tariff, a more meaningful way to ensure access is perhaps to integrate energy policies within the broader arena of comprehensive development policies to ensure improvement in socio-economic indicators.