The State of Renewable Energy in India

            India has the world’s fastest growing economy and are dramatically increasing their energy needs. The future of energy in India could play out in any number of ways and the world should be paying attention. With the second largest population in the world, whatever energy move India makes, it will have global effects. This report will focus on the fate of renewables in India, as investment in these renewables will have the greatest benefit for the environmental goals of not only India, but for the rest of the world as well.

            India is already facing energy issues when electricity is observed. In 2009-2010, there was a 10 percent gap, a 84TWh deficit, between India’s total energy needs and their supply (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report). With growing numbers of issues such as voltage fluctuations, blackouts, etc, India must close this gap for the overall welfare of their people, and investment in renewable power in increasingly looking like the best way to go.

            Are renewables in India even viable? As far as natural resources are concerned, India is in a very good position. Some parts of the country receive some of the highest solar irradiation worldwide. The miles of coastline offer vast opportunities for wind power both on and offshore. Also, considering the fact the India is currently around 80 percent rural, the potential to produce biomass for burning is tremendous (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report). However, this brings up another issue India will have to face when implementing new energy policies. The nature of India is variability and that is no different when it comes to energy sources. Therefore, there cannot be blanket investment in one type of energy for the country as a whole. Instead, local governments should increasingly play a role in deciding the energy fate of their particular region so that the resources in each region are being used to their full potential so energy can be produced most efficiently,

            This investment in renewable energy is important for India as they look towards an energy independent future. Currently, India imports over  two-thirds of their oil from foreign countries, particularly the Middle East. This leaves them vulnerable to market fluctuations and price gouging that can be a critical blow to their developing economy. These price shocks are becoming even more frequent as the global demand for oil increases. It is expected that by 2030, the price of oil will have risen by 46 percent. On the flip side, the price of renewable technologies is decreasing. In the same amount of time, the price of photovoltaic’s is expected to come down by half (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report).

            Renewable energies can also address some of the inequality issues that saturate Indian society. Localized renewable energies can bring energy to the rural people who currently lack the roads and grids necessary for receiving energy from centralized power plants, such as coal fire power plants. This is no small problem in India. Currently over 50 percent of people living in rural areas are living without electricity. An investment in renewable energies would also be an investment in closing this gap. With the ever-decreasing price of renewables, there is also the hope that electricity will be more affordable to all including both the urban and rural poor (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report).

            Finally, investment in renewable energy will have the always-beneficial element of reducing lower greenhouse gas emissions. India has the potential to be a world leader in the renewable sector and thus a leader in the environmental movement. Currently India emits 4 percent of global greenhouse gases but when looking at per capita emission, they are only a quarter of the average global per capita emissions and one-tenth of what most developed nations are emitting per capita (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report). . If India could continue this trend of low per capita emissions and even improve upon it they could have a huge impact globally.

            Already, India has begun to introduce more and more renewable energies into their grid. As of June 2010, 10 percent of India’s installed energy capacity was already renewable, wind energy being a large part of this category (Indian Renewable Energy Status Report). This investment is attracting investment from global countries looking to make renewables more viable on a global scale. If this trend continues, some of the economic burden of starting up these energy projects might be relieved from the Indian government. Furthermore, as new technologies are brought to India, their economy is boosted as new jobs are created. These jobs would be great assets to the Indian economy, one that is in transitions from reliance on the primary sector to the tertiary sector and the information age Indian Renewable Energy Status Report).

            India has great potential for leading the way in renewable energy investment. With great natural resources all they need now is proper investment. As renewable prices come down and their economy grows, this seems more viable each day. It is in the best interest of the Indian government to make this investment now in order to become a world leader in the future.

Source: Indian Renewable Energy Status Report

Hunger in India: Distribution over production flaws

            We have learned in class about the nourishment problems in India. We know about the high levels of wasting and stunting. The 2011 report on State of the World’s Children reports that in India 48 percent of children under 5 are undernourished, 20 percent are wasted and 48 percent are stunted (“State of the World’s Children 2011). These statistics are just a few of the indicators of hunger in India. What is the real cause behind hunger in India? More and more, researchers are arguing that it is not a production problem, but rather a distribution problem. The problem of distribution has a particularly harsh effect on the rural poor in India. I will look at the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India and how access to this program is determined.

            Food production in India has had an history of peaks and valleys just like in many other countries. India was once the world’s largest net importer of grain but their Green Revolution that focused on agriculturally promising areas and investment in promising farmers turned them into a net exporter in a matter of the few years between 1966 and 1972 (Swaminathan). In fact in the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, the rate of grain production exceeded the rate of population growth. Reserves were high as were spirits, but recently India has seen a downturn in their production numbers, now just barely keeping pace. This is due in large part to liberalization policies that brought a dramatic decrease in public funds designated to investment in agriculture and rural development. It also brought economic hardship on farmers by closing bank branches in rural areas, increased exclusion from the formal financial system (Swaminathan). However, what is still the greatest problem facing India is distribution. Yes, production may soon become strained or fall behind population growth, but if India cannot even distribute the food it already has no amount of excess production will cure the hunger problem.

           

            India has had a PDS since the 1940’s when distribution focused mainly on urban areas and was dependent on food imports. Once India became more self-sufficient in food production, the years of 1978 to 1991 saw a major expansion of this program. In recent times, the PDS has moved to a Targeted PDS (TPDS) another product of liberalization (Swaminathan). This new TPDS is being criticized for because it has “neither benefited the poor, or helped reduce budgetary food subsidies,” (Swaminathan). The main problems with the TPDS are cited as: exclusion of some of those who truly need food, less economic viability, no price stabilization and food not reaching the intended consumer (Swaminathan). The exclusion of “truly needy” people is an interesting aspect and one I will consider further.

            The objective of the current TPDS system, in the most basic terms, is to identify the poor and provide them with food. Households must be identified as below poverty line (BPL) households in ordered to be considred for the program. Notice I said considered, because there is a subset of the TPDS, the poorest of the poor or the “antoyoday anna yojana” or AAY households, which are the only households to be guaranteed 35 kilograms of food grains per month through fair price shops (FPS) with presentation of ration cards. The BPL households will only have food distributed to them after these AAY households have been satisfied and often there is not enough to go around. These ration cards provide food at a subsidized price and AAY cardholders have an significantly higher subsidy than BPL households. However, hunger in India extends outside of just the poorest families, meaning many of India’s hungry are left out of the TPDS completely. Households considered above the poverty line (APL) are given ration cards that rather than giving them food only allows them to buy food at FPS at prices close to the market value (Asthana). Furthermore, there is the problem of corruption in India. In 2007 it was ranked 72nd in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. This can certainly be seen in the PDS. PDS ration cards are stolen and sold on the open market to people not classified or wrongly classified as poor and therefore entitled to food allotment. Also, there are instances when FPS’s do not receive any food allotment for the month because the food has been diverted to another FPS, region, etc. These “leakages” are not compensated in the next month and leakages increased with the remoteness of the FPS. This is made worse by the fact that generally it was found that greater remoteness (distance from nearest town) correlated with less access to food in general (Asthana).

            There were also interesting findings when looking at scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST). Asthana found that villages with more SC’s were less likely to receive their monthly allotment at the FPS. Villages with more ST’s were even less likely to receive allotment even when controlling remoteness as a variable (ST’s tend to live in the remotest locations as compared to other rural populations). Overall, the study by Asthana revealed that “access to subsidized food is limited by status in the caste hierarchy,” and scheduled tribes have even lower socio-economic indicators and access to food than scheduled castes (Asthana).

            Food production is no small matter in India, but the distribution systems in even worse condition. The TPDS leaves out many of the legitimately hungry by targeting the poor, or even more specifically, the poorest of the poor. Furthermore, corruption and leakages in the chain of supply causes the remotest, most rural populations to face the largest gaps in allotment. Finally, members of the lowest caste and members of indigenous tribes face the largest discrepancies with the TPDS due to perhaps discrimination and corruption. A return to the old PDS that focused on providing access to food for all seems to be in order as the TPDS’s many flaws are brought to light in new studies. Whatever India decides to do, distribution as well as food production should be the focus, distribution even more so than production.

Sources:

The State of the World’s Children 2011, Unicef.

Swaminathan, M. “Population and Food Security” Handbook of Populaiton and Development in India.

Asthana, A. N. “What determine access to subsidised food by the rural poor? Evidence from India” IDPR, 31(3). 2009. 

Nitrogen in India: Where it comes from and how it affects the people

            We all know that you can have too much of a good thing and the same is true for nitrogen. With the Green Revolution, the world thought the solution to world hunger was found in the form of nitrogen rich fertilizers (as well as new technologies, etc.) that dramatically increased yields and drastically reduced food prices. Yet hunger persists and now we have a new problem on our hands. Human use of nitrogen has grown to great excess and human alteration of the nitrogen cycle is having detrimental effects. One article stated that “human activity now fixes more atmospheric N₂ into reactive forms than all terrestrial natural processes combined,” Townsend et. al. 2003). We have had too much of a good thing. This situation can be seen playing out in India where the use of nitrogen is no longer beneficial to human health and is in fact causing humans harm.  Townsend et. al put it this way, “ the greatest net benefits are found at low to moderate levels of N use, and continued environmental N enrichment will greatly amplify the health costs,” (Townsend et. al. 2003).

           

            Nitrogen use has seen a rapid increase in India since 1950 as it did in many other countries going through their own “green revolutions.” In 1950-51, nitrogen use in India sat at 55,000 tons. This skyrocketed to 11.31 million tons by 2001-02. This was reflected in an increase in food production as well from 50.83 to 222 million tons (Gupta 2005). Nitrogen consumption varies by region in India with the highest consumption being in the north followed by the south, west and east. The increase in consumption in the north is much greater than in the other areas due to the increased cereal production, a high N demanding crop. In states like Punjab and Haryana, much food production has moved to rice-wheat production to keep up with population increase. Rice-wheat is a more nitrogen responsive crop, thus also increasing N fertilizer use (Gupta 2005).

           

            Furthermore, the nutrient use efficiency of N is very low. The use efficiency or how much of the nitrogen is removed by plants above ground varies between 30 and 50 percent depending on types of crops and management (Gupta 2005). This low use efficiency has environmental implications. Past observations report that about half of fertilizer applied to fields is either lost to leaching into ground waters as NO₃ or lost in the atmosphere as NH₃ and NO (Gupta 2005). Nitrogen lost this way is lost as pollution. Excess nitrogen in rivers and oceans cause eutrophication while excess nitrogen in the air can have serious health risks. 

            Excess nitrogen in the natural system has serious health risks, not only in India, but also in all parts of the world where excess nitrogen is a problem. Health risks include respiratory complications, cardiac disease and several cancers (Townsend et. al. 2003). For example, high NO levels in the air leads to production of tropospheric ozone, which in turn aggravates coughs, asthma, etc. High levels of nitrate in drinking water (defined by the World Health Organization as more than 10 ppm) can lead to reproductive health problems, methemoglobinemia (especially in infants) and cancer (Townsend et. al. 2003).  These health risks are amplified as more and more reactive nitrogen is added to the system.

            India, as a developing country, also has a more unique source of excess nitrogen. Field burning of crop residue or FBCR is a practice commonly seen in developing country and a growing problem because of the release of carbon and nitrogen emissions. About 76 percent of this biomass that is burned is from rice and wheat crops, which as already mentioned are major crops in India. Burning this biomass is estimated to emit, in 2010, 0.35 Tg of nitrogen and 140.6 Gg of NO_x. Indian states such as U.P, Punjab, Haryana, M.P, Maharashtra, T.N, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and W.B have been found to contribute maximum to the Indian FBCR emissions,” (Sahai et. al., 2010). As we have already seen excess NO_x emissions have serious health risks.

           

            FBCR is also a concern because it leads to loss of soil carbon and nitrogen, nutrients needed for subsequent growing seasons. Is it possible that FBCR is linked to increased nitrogen fertilizer use? Perhaps stopping FBCR could have an effect on the amount of fertilizer being used in India, but more research needs to be done before correlation can be suggested.

           

            Human alteration of the nitrogen cycle is increasingly becoming a problem globally. Whether it is the worldwide case of the Green Revolution and nitrogen fertilizer or the more specialized case of FBCR in India, too much nitrogen is a classic case of too much of a good thing. The health benefits (i.e. increased food production) have peaked and now the increasing use of nitrogen is only amplifying health risks. As for what can be done to combat this, there is still much to be learned. In places like the northern region of India where cereal crops demand nitrogen to produce and food production has to keep pace with a growing population, you can’t quit N cold turkey. Instead more efficient methods need to be developed and farmers need more education as to why FBCR is detrimental. But this brings up a whole new set of issues in India. For now I leave you with this small snippet on nitrogen and India

Sources:

Gupta, A.P. “Nitrogen use scenario in India” Science in China. 2005. <http://www.springerlink.com.libproxy.furman.edu/content/a0122v881617764r/fulltext.pdf>

Sahai, S. et. al. “Assessment of trace gases, carbon and nitrogen emissions

from field burning of agricultural residues in India” Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst. 2010. <http://www.springerlink.com.libproxy.furman.edu/content/8h76543580550904/fulltext.pdf>

Townsend, A.R., et. al. “Human health effects of changing global nitrogen cycle” The Ecological Society of America. 2003. 

Gender in India: The Case of Rural Women

As a female soon to be traveling through India, I believe it is only natural to consider the history of gender discrimination in this very clearly patriarchal society. Gender almost seems to be an enigma in India, a country with a female president alongside gender issues such as female feticide and dowry deaths. And of course there is the special case of Kerala – a lone matriarchy in a sea of male dominance. Yes gender issues are vastly complex and varying in a country as populous and diverse as India, so I will only attempt to scratch the surface and to only look at a specific case, that of poor rural women.

            The case of rural women and gender discrimination is an interesting one. Women are the workhorse when it comes to the care of the household such as foraging for food and fire materials yet “the is a systematic anti-female bias in the allocation within rural households of subsistence resources controlled by men including resources used for food, health care, education and other basic needs,” (Agarwal 1997).   This means that although the rural females are expected to provide these “subsistence resources” they actually have less access to these than their husbands. Women in rural settings do much if not the entire gathering from forest, rivers, wells, etc. In some cases the women are the sole economic providers for their families. Yet at the same time women have little to no access to private resources such as agricultural land.  Thus their job is made that much harder by their lack of resources. This is especially disturbing considering that women tend to focus more on the needs of the family than men as can be seen by the fact that women tend to spend personal income on their children where men tend to spend their incomes on themselves (Agarwal 1997).  In “Property right’s in women’s empowerment in rural India: a review” the authors say that, “various studies also reveal that while men keep a sizeable portion of their income for their personal consumption on liquor, tobacco, clothes and so on, women spend almost the whole of their income on family's needs,” (Roy and Tisdell 2002).  Thus it seems it would make sense to put more resources into the hands of these poor rural women, but I will look more at this later.  

            Rural women aren’t only faced with inequalities in their roles as household providers but also in potential economic opportunities as well. Females tend to have less employment opportunities over all as well as less “occupational mobility,” lack of training and a wage gap (Agarwal 1997).  Not to mention rural women already have the consuming job of supporting their household’s physical needs. The major problem here lies in the fact that the labor they perform to do this is undertaken within their own homes and therefore “not recognized as an economic activity,” (Roy and Tisdell 2002). Women can find employment working in agriculture but this brings up another issue. It seems that with the tasks appointed to rural women and their subsequent skill set, land ownership would be very beneficial to rural women, but they meet discrimination here again. Land is held in the males names and passed from father to eldest son This leaves wives, mothers, sisters, daughters dependent on male family members, offering no permanent security for themselves or their families because women are cultivating land held by others (Roy and Tisdell 2002). If property rights were given to women they could find empowerment, not to mention the positive environmental effects on the land as well.

           

            To change the plight of rural women education, property rights and female participation, among other factors should be considered. It was observed by Roy and Tisdell that women with land titles were treated better by male family members and found more respect in social settings because they were not seen as economically dependent. Economic independence could be a step towards reducing gender bias overall (Roy and Tisdell 2002). Empowering women goes beyond positive personal effects. For example, commons are better protected and regulated when the women are included and cooperate as they are the ones that use the commons and thus the ones that will uphold protective regulations. A specific example of this can be seen in forests where women have a clearer and more educated opinion in species selection when trying to reverse deforestation. They have the needs of their families in mind and therefore chose a variety of species for food, medicine, fire fodder, etc., which means easier selection for women in the future (Agarwal 1997). Roy and Tisdell observe that land ownership by women often ensures better care of the land in the long term because women are concerned about the future welfare of their families. Roy and Tisdell write, “Since the land use patterns of men are usually more destructive of nature than that of women who are directly concerned with the protection and regeneration of forest for fuel, fodder and other non-timber forest produce, land in women's name will lead to the greater preservation of ecology and environment,” (Roy and Tisdell 2002). They furthermore propose that property rights for women could have an effect on urbanization. Since most rural women are not economically employed, many rural families migrate to cities for more economic opportunities. Therefore, land rights and subsequent employment of females could potentially slow down this migration (Roy and Tisdell 2002).

            I once heard that India is a country of contradictions and I believe this can be seen in the case of gender discrimination, particularly in the case of rural women. These women are expected to provide for the physical needs of their families yet lack access to or ownership of necessary resources. There are clearly positive effects to be seen if this contradiction was righted, but India has a long way to go in this area. This is only a specific subset of gender issues plaguing the country, but this case is representative of the country of contradictions.

“Gender, Environment, and Poverty Interlinks: Regional Variations and Temporal Shifts in Rural India, 1971-91” Bina Agarwal, 1997.

“Property rights in women's empowerment in rural India: a review “ K.C. Roy and C.A. Tisdell, 2002.