India has pledged to electrify 40 million homes this year to meet the goal of providing electricity to all of its 1.3 billion people. It also has plans to install 75 gigawatts of renewable energy as part of commitments under the Paris Agreements.

But there is a missing link to these ambitious pledges that could help create a just energy reconciliation India, like many other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, lacks effective energy Evaluation program, experts say.

At a webinar on June 29th organized by Asia Pacific Energy Assessment (EEAP) Experts identified challenges to addressing energy assessment in this vast and diverse country and made suggestions on how to overcome them.

Vibhuti GargIndia lead at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, pointed out how India’s much-vaunted plan to provide households with clean cooking fuels went awry due to poor targeting. According to studies, relatively wealthier sections of the population have cornered the subsidies, with intended beneficiaries burning biomass along with cleaner fuels, she said.

India is not devoid of agencies doing energy assessments and that includes the Comptroller and Auditor General office testing government Income and expenditure, said Aditya Chunekar, a fellow at Prayas, the Pune-based energy group that promotes public awareness of energy projects. Customers and consumers need to understand how programs and projects are evolving and how different socioeconomic groups will be affected, he said.

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Evaluators in India must work with government at all levels to accept evaluation results and lessons learned so that better programs and policies can be adopted.

Edward Vine, Energy Efficiency Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In 2001, India a Energy Efficiency Office commissioned to develop energy efficiency guidelines and strategies. However, the bureau has been criticized for being ineffective in areas such as addressing massive supply-side electricity losses attributed to powerful players in the system.

Chunkekar pointed to the practice of consultants evaluating projects on the basis of specifications that limited their independence. The assessments made are often filed without any attempt being made to take them into account in new projects, he said, adding that there are often no provisions for medium-term corrections.

“For the assessment to be considered credible, the evaluators must be independent of the agency implementing the energy programs and policies,” said the webinar moderator Edward VineEnergy efficiency scientist and partner at the Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryUS.

Similarly, Vine says, evaluators need to be involved in discussions with stakeholders — like states, unions, and industries — as part of a feedback loop to earn their trust and inform.influencers” at the community level about the impact of programs and policies at different levels.

According to Vine, EEAP could play a crucial role in evaluating energy policies and programs in India, including through webinars to help develop and promote an evaluation culture. “EEAP could compile and disseminate best practices on evaluation and help disseminate this information to all stakeholders,” he said SciDev.Net.

“In summary, evaluators in India need to work with government at all levels to accept the evaluation findings and lessons learned so that better programs and policies can be adopted.”

This article was originally published on SciDev.Net. read this original article.