Energy Subsidies in India

This International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) & Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) three-part commentary series takes a deep dive into how India’s energy sector is coping with the impacts of COVID-19 and what this means for the sustainable energy transition.

From IISD and CEEW, part 1 of a three-part commentary series that takes a deep dive into how India’s energy sector is coping with the impacts of COVID-19 and what this means for the sustainable energy transition.

Media and experts have begun to comment on the significance of IISD's new report, Mapping India’s Energy Subsidies 2020: Fossil Fuels, Renewables, Electric Vehicles.

New Delhi, April 16 – India’s renewable energy subsidies fell 35% from FY17 to FY19, while its oil and gas subsidies increased by 65%, according to a new study entitled Mapping India’s Energy Subsidies 2020, released today by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

This report identifies knowledge gaps that are limiting policy making for better targeting of energy access subsidies in India. It identifies a number of targeting interventions that could be employed to better target subsidies for electricity and LPG.

Pricing drives economic decision making, and subsidies (along with taxation) are one of the key tools that governments use to influence prices, and through them investment decisions and consumer behaviour. This update highlights the most significant developments in the dynamic domain of India’s energy subsidy policies in FY 2017 and explores the role that subsidies play with respect to four themes: energy access; th

The report examines the impacts of India’s subsidies to cooking gas—and their reform—from a gender perspective. On average, when cooking with liquified petroleum gas (LPG) rather than biomass, women saved about one hour per day due to reduced cooking and cleaning times. The report recommends reviewing subsidy targeting policies so that more poor households benefit from ongoing LPG subsidies because its findings sho