Development talks - Fighting poverty in the most effective way

Kofi Annan once highlighted that the then abstract idea of sustainable development needed to be turned into a reality for the world population. Unfortunately, a lot of progress still remains on that front. The world’s—and India’s—performance on the relatively straight-forward Millennium Development Goals (2000-15) was impressive but far from impeccable. Since then, the global community has adopted a much grander set of promises called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Environmental protesters and politicians around the world are calling for countries to become carbon neutral by 2050, if not sooner. These proposals get a lot of attention, but they would incur far higher costs than almost any electorate is willing to pay.

Access to electricity is critical for a modern economy, and a key driver of social and economic development. Lighting, health, education, productivity, labour participation, enterprise development and income generation, all improve when households are provided with access. In India, rural areas had electrification rates of 74% compared to 97% in urban areas in 2016.