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Electricity is critical to enabling India’s economic growth and providing a better future for its citizens. In spite of several decades of reform, the Indian electricity sector is unable to provide high-quality and affordable electricity for all, and grapples with the challenge of poor financial and operational performance.

To understand why, Mapping Power provides the most comprehensive analysis of the political economy of electricity in India’s states. With chapters on fifteen states by scholars of state politics and electricity, this volume maps the political and economic forces that constrain and shape decisions in electricity distribution. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it concludes that attempts to depoliticize the sector are misplaced and could worsen outcomes. Instead, it suggests that a historically grounded political economy analysis helps understand the past and devise reforms to simultaneously improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards. These arguments have implications for the challenges facing India’s electricity future, including providing electricity to all, implementing government reform schemes and successfully managing the rise of renewable energy.

Contents: Preface. Introduction: a framework for mapping power/Sunila S. Kale, Navroz K. Dubash and Ranjit Bharvirkar. 1. Transforming reforms: hype, hostility and placation in Andhra Pradesh’s power sector reforms/Ashwini K. Swain. 2. Disempowerment of incumbent elite and governance: a case of Bihar’s electricity sector/Md Zakaria Siddiqui. 3. Wielding power in the capital: the case of the Delhi electricity distribution sector/Megha Kaladhara. 4. Gujarat’s success in efficient electricity distribution: a call for proactive governance to further gains/Siddharth Sareen. 5. Extractive states and layered conflict: the case of Jharkhand’s electricity sector/Rohit Chandra. 6. Efficiency and welfare: the tightrope walk in Karnataka’s power sector/Meera Sudhakar. 7. Poverty in the midst of abundance: repressive populism, bureaucratization and supply-side bias in Madhya Pradesh’s power sector/Ashwini K. Swain. 8. Paradoxes of distribution reforms in Maharashtra/Kalpana Dixit. 9. Endless restructuring of the power sector in Odisha: a Sisyphean tale?/Mrigakshi Das and Mahaprajna Nayak. 10. Protecting power: the politics of partial reforms in Punjab/Ashwini K. Swain. 11. Electricity distribution in Rajasthan: unbundling the recurrent failures of a politicized sector/Siddharth Sareen. 12. Tamil Nadu power sector: the saga of the subsidy trap/Hema Ramakrishnan. 13. Stalled reform in the face of electoral fears: Uttar Pradesh’s electricity distribution sector/Jonathan Balls. 14. Uttarakhand: The golden combination of cheap energy and a large industrial base/Jonathan Balls. 15. Insulated wires: the precarious rise of West Bengal’s power sector/Elizabeth Chatterjee. Conclusion: Mapping Power in Comparative State Context/Navroz K. Dubash, Sunila S. Kale and Ranjit Bharvirkar. Index.