Question
Explain in detail about India’s electricity scenario.

Answer

Electricity scenario in India:
  • Electricity is a very important aspect for economic development at both rural and urban level.
  • Proper electrical infrastructure has resulted in good growth in the fields of agriculture, irrigation, cottage and small scale industries in rural areas. Electricity has played an equally important role for industrial development and service sector development in urban areas.
  • In $1950-51,$ India’s capacity to produce electricity was $2300$ megawatts which increased to $1,54,574\ MW$ in July $2009.$ Thus in the span of $61$ years from $1950-51$ to $2011-12’$ electricity production has increased multiple times.
  • We can see the direct benefits of this increase in the fields of agriculture, industry and service sector.
  • At world level, India ranks $7th$ in electricity production and 5th in electricity consumption. .
  • In India, Central Government, State Government and even private sector produce electricity.
$(A)$ Sources of production:
Owing to its topography and resources, India has following four ways of
producing electricity:
  1. Thermal power $–$ Through coal
  2. Hydro power $–$ Through water
  3. Nuclear power $–$ Through nuclear energy
  4. Others $–$ Windmill, biogas, solar energy, etc.
The distribution of power production in the year $2012-13$ is shown in table.
Type of power source Percentage production
Thermal $70\%$
Hydro $16\%$
Nuclear $2\%$
Others $12\%$
Total $100\%$
$(B)$ Focus on renewable sources of energy:
  • The government is consistently making efforts to spread the use of solar power. It is encouraging people to use solar power by giving several types of subsidies for purchasing solar cooker, solar geyser, installing roof-top solar plants, etc.
  • Government is also encouraging other renewable sources such as hydro power and wind power $($through windmills$)$ since these sources also do not cause pollution. Moreover, it is quite test to produce energy through these sources.
$(C)$ Use of electricity:
India uses majority of electricity for
  1. Agriculture,
  2. Industries,
  3. Household,
  4. Transportation and
  5. Others.
Use of electricity by different sectors $($in percentage$)$
No. Sectors Year: $2012-13$
$(1)$ Household $22\%$
$(2)$ Agriculture $18\%$
$(3)$ Industries $45\%$
$(4)$ Transportation $02\%$
$(5)$ Other wastage and distribution and consumption $12\%$
Total $100\%$
$(D)$ Challenges faced by electricity sector:
  1. The biggest and the most important challenge that India faces is that the electricity sector is’ noi able to fully utilize its production capacity.
  2. The second challenge is that the availability of electricity is not enough to meet the requirement of economy which aims to grow at th_ rate of $7-8\%.$
  3. The production of electricity is less than the production capacity.
  4. Apart from these problems, improper electricity distribution, wastage of electricity, theft of electricity, etc. are also important challenges faced by the electricity sector.
  5. Electricity production is also affected by factors like high cost, frequent power cuts, scarcity of coal, etc.

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