Gujarat, Kerala and Punjab received the highest scores in NITI Aayog’s State Energy and Climate Index among other large states. The newly-designed index measures India’s progress in the energy sector and its climate action to meet the goals set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at last year’s COP26 summit.
The states were ranked based on six broad categories -- discoms’ performance, access, affordability and reliability of energy, clean energy initiatives, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and new initiatives -- which were then split into 27 indicators. The inaugural index used the data from 2019-2020.
The indicators are scored out of 100, which makes up the final score for the states.
The index is meant to help states and UTs address policy gaps in their roadmap to achieve emission reduction by 50 percent by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2070.
“Achieving the ambitious climate targets would require a conducive policy environment to encourage investment. The 1st State Energy & Climate Index will help initiate a dialogue with the states on the energy sector so that much required policy improvements can be made,” NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.
Goa, Tripura, and Manipur were the best performers among the smaller states and Chandigarh, Delhi and Daman & Diu/Dadra & Nagar Haveli were the top rankers in terms of UTs.
Punjab and Gujarat had the best discom performance, while Kerala scored impressively on the access, affordability and reliability category. But all three states scored poorly on the new initiatives categories (which include indicators like electronic vehicle penetration and availability of charging infrastructure). Punjab’s energy efficiency score was also low while Gujarat and Kerala only scored moderately well in the same category. Tamil Nadu scored the best on the metric.
Environmental sustainability also remains an avenue of improvement, with most states hovering around the 30-40 score mark. India overall scored a 40 with state scores being set on a graded curve.
A score of 46 or higher is considered ‘front runners,’ between 36 and 46 ‘achievers,’ and 36 and below are termed ‘aspirants.’Gujarat got a score of 50.1, while Punjab scored 49.1 and Kerala received 48.6.
