Energy and Sustainable Development of India

ARC Guest lecture by

Professor Ramprasad Sengupta

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi & ICCR Chair Professor for Indian Studies (Economics), Hamburg University:

'Energy Poverty, Energy Security and Sustainable Development of India'

India's recent growth rate has been spectacular. However, there is also unacceptable poverty, massive deficits on the educational and health fronts, and a lack of access to basic amenities such as modern clean energy, safe water, and sanitation. Energy poverty is high in rural India, with significant dependence on traditional inefficient biomass as the primary cooking fuel with injurious health effects and a lack of reliable and adequate connectivity of households with electricity. Additionally India is dependent on imported fossil fuels for meeting her modern clean energy needs. This presentation takes stock of these challenges and argues for inclusive faster growth to remove both income and energy poverty and thereby ensure energy security and environmental sustainability of Indian economic development.

Ramprasad Sengupta has spent the past 32 years as a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research. He has also served as the Independent Director on the Board of Directors of the Steel Authority of India. He was formerly an advisor in energy modeling for the federal government’s Indian Planning Commission. He was also a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta and has been a visiting professor or scholar at universities in Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well as at the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University. 

Dr. Sengupta’s research interests lie primarily in energy, resource, and environmental economics. Areas of focus within those fields include development economics and planning, the economics of the infrastructure and steel sectors, and mathematical policy modeling for the energy, steel, and infrastructure sectors.

Arranged by the Asia Research Centre