Three decades of Indian power-sector reform:A critical assessment

The accumulated financial loss of the Indian state-owned electricity utilities (SOEUs) has crossed over USD 6.25 billion and 80% of the SOEUs are consistently incurring losses and hence financially unsustainable in long term. In this article, the impact of three decades of Indian policy reform towards reviving the techno-commercial performance of the SOEUs is critically assessed. To quantify the relative performance of SOEUs and bring out the reason behind the inefficiencies of individual SOEUs, data envelopment analysis improved by Shannon's entropy model is applied. The benchmark SOEUs are identified for each inefficient ones, and corrective policy measures are recommended.

Automated summary

The Indian state-owned electricity utilities have accumulated significant financial losses, with 80% consistently incurring losses and facing financial unsustainability in the long term. This article critically assesses the impact of three decades of Indian policy reform on improving the techno-commercial performance of these utilities, utilizing data envelopment analysis and Shannon's entropy model to identify inefficiencies and recommend corrective measures.