World Bank reports on India's Village Energy Security Programme

The World Bank has released a draft report titled 'Biomass for Sustainable Development' on the Village Energy Security Programme, a Government of India initiative.

Noting several areas requiring intervention, the paper has included a set of recommendations aimed at improving institutional performance, technical performance, financial performance and finally, improving the institutional framework for VESP.

The VESP was launched in 2005, with a view to explore the development of community-driven biomass-based resources to meet the basic energy needs of the remote villages, where electrification is not possible. Following this, in 2006 GoI had requested the WB to undertake a recipient-executed technical assistance programme, ' Biomass for Sustainable Development', to extend support to VESP. The objectives of the technical assistance paper were to design, test and evaluate test projects being implemented under the ESP and further, to fore-assess the sustainability of institutional arrangements and business models.