Tamil Nadu Best in Providing Clean and Affordable Energy: NITI Aayog

Renewable sources constitute 100 percent of total installed generating capacity of electricity in three States and four UTs.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) India Index which was released by NITI Aayog recently has ranked Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Gujarat as the top states for providing affordable and clean energy to their population.

Uttar Pradesh along with Meghalaya, Assam and Jharkhand are at the bottom as the worst performers.

The index is a three-way joint venture between Niti Aayog, UN in India and Global Green Growth Initiative. It aims to rank states based on their achievement of sustainable development goals. SDG goal 7 deals with performance towards achieving the Goal of Affordable and Clean Energy.

To rank states on this goal, three indicators were selected by NITI Aayog; percentage of households electrified, percentage of households using clean cooking fuel and renewable share of installed generating capacity.

States with a rank of 100 were termed Achievers; those with rank of 65-99 were Front Runners; 50-64 were Performers and states with rank between 0 and 49 were termed Aspirants.

The report mentioned that, “Among states, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Karnataka are the top 3 performers on this Goal with a score of 89, 78 and 77 respectively. Among UTs, Chandigarh fares the best with a score of 96.”

“Ten States and UTs are Front Runners (with index score greater than or equal to 65 and less than 100), while 12 States and UTs are categorised as Aspirants (with index score less than 50),” the SDG report said.

“In April 2018, India achieved the milestone of providing electricity to all the Census villages and aims to achieve universal electrification at the household level by 31st March, 2019,” the SDG report prepared by Niti Aayog said.

The report also mentioned that, “Renewable energy sources are 17.51 percent of the total installed electricity generating capacity of India. Among the installed electricity sources of utilities, renewables grew at the highest rate during 2006-07 and 2015-16.

“Wind power has the highest share among all renewable power sources (March, 2016). Renewable sources constitute 100 percent of total installed generating capacity of electricity in three States and four UTs.”