After 60 years of independence, around 300 million people in India are yet to access any form of commercial energy. A question arises in the mind: Do we, as a nation, really want to ensure commercial energy for rural India? Maybe not. But it is clear that without assured and sufficient input, it is impossible to enhance the rural GDP or sustainable rural development.

As per the Planning Commission Report (2002), the percentage share of revenue from agriculture in total sales revenue is 4.99, where agriculture accounts for 30% of the total electricity sales.

Various innovative initiatives have been taken by leaders from all spheres of the development sector. They are the only inspiration for DESI power to initiate a 100 village EmPower Partnership Programme - a step towards creating energy surplus villages to ensure holistic and sustainable rural development. Under this programme, DESI Power (A Development Alternatives Group Enterprise) will create 10 energy clusters with a generation capacity of 500MW each, using locally available biomass (mainly wild weeds and agriculture residue). The following features will explain the proposed journey towards creating energy surplus villages:

· Institutional Building Process
The DESI Power’s village level experience during pilot implementation has shown that one of the critical bottlenecks for a large-scale replication of the EmPower Partnership Programme is the lack of trained manpower at all technical and managerial levels. The reluctance of city trained persons to move to a village or small town is a major barrier. The practice of local men trained by DESI Power to seek better fortunes elsewhere no sooner than they have become productive is the other. Recognising the seriousness of the problem of staffing - without which the 100 Village EmPower Partnership Programme cannot be completed within the planned time frame - DESI Power decided to find its own solution by training about 3000 local people and starting a Management Training Centre for Rural Women called DESI_MANTRA. The centre provides training to women in areas of relevance to EmPP Programme: computer usage and applications, biomass generation and management, energy services, basics of micro-finance, book keeping and accounting, project management, project profitability and personnel management. As women are less likely to walk away to a better job after being trained, DESI_MANTRA is providing training mostly for local women on biomass gasification, biogas, power generation and management; rural energy services like making solar ovens, solar panels, LED lamp assemblies, energy efficient stove, value addition to the agro by-products by briquetting, etc., rural enterprises; basics of office administration as well as basics of project management and monitoring, basics of financial management, basics of micro-finance, fuel and agro forestry, vermiculture, organic farming, biogas, etc.

· Financial Arrangement
This financial arrangement is a perfect example of public-private-community partnership. The total funding requirement for each cluster consisting of 10 villages is Rs 7.4 Crores and, thus, the total 100 village programme costs become Rs 74 Crores. The approximate share of the various stakeholders is as shown in the following table.

· The ‘Triple ROI’ criteria
One of the hardest tasks for everyone involved in promoting sustainable development is to try and convince the policy makers, private sector investors and financial consultants that economic, social and ecological consequences should be simultaneously considered while making investment decisions and selecting projects, and a single ‘Triple ROI’ (Return on Investment) criterion can be used for this purpose.

This 100 village EmPP programme, on the other hand, will promote projects which combine social and ecological benefits with a fair financial return. The 100 village programme will create over 2500 direct year round jobs in addition to indirect jobs through increased farm production, new trading and commercial activities, and energy services. It will also reduce pollution, improve women’s health and reduce the migration to city slums. Overall, the growth of the GNP as well of the human development index of the village can be quantified and demonstrated for the large- scale replication of the EmPP model.

An All Win Outcome

The villagers (especially women) will enjoy regular employment, higher farm output, better produce prices, improved women’s health, profitable businesses, and capacity to undertake local social initiatives. Independent rural power producers will ensure assured electric load and biomass supply, profitable power plant and energy services, and extension fees to run the cluster centres. Investors and banks will help reliable local borrowers with reduced risks and acceptable ROI and this will meet the social and ethical responsibilities.

The Government will be able to gather a learning experience for replicable energy service model for small-scale (25 - 100 kWe) decentralised (off-grid) power supply and energy services systems for remote areas. It will not only reduce the power and financial losses in rural power grids but also ensure less budgetary support for rural power supply. An increased rural productivity will also help the government to address migration (to cities) related issues.
The silent beneficiaries, i.e., the environment will face lower local pollution due to the use of carbon neutral technologies and practices. A saving of 430,000 tonnes on CO2 over ten years and every CER investment will leverage three to four times local and private capital. q

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