Uneven electrification can be a source of welfare disparity. Given the recent progress of electrification in India, we analyze the differences in access and reliability of electricity, and its impact on household welfare for marginalized and dominant social groups by caste and religion. We carry out longitudinal analysis from a national survey, 2005–2012, using OLS, fixed effects and panel instrumental variable regressions. Our analysis shows that marginalized groups (Hindu SC/ST and Muslims) had higher likelihood of electricity access compared to the dominant groups (Hindu forward castes and OBC). In terms of electricity reliability, in a period when the all households lost electricity hours, marginalized groups lost less electricity hours in a day as compared to domi- nant groups. Results showed that electrification enabled marginalized households to increase their consumption, assets and move out of poverty, but the effect was smaller as compared to dominant groups. Overall, the effects were more pronounced in rural areas. The findings are robust to alternative ways of measuring consumption, and other robustness checks. We posit that electrification increased household welfare of marginalized groups, but did not reduce absolute disparities among social groups.

不均匀的电气化可能是福利差距的根源。鉴于印度电气化的最新进展，我们分析了电力供应和可靠性方面的差异，及其对不同种姓和宗教的边缘化和主导社会群体家庭福利的影响。我们使用 OLS、固定效应和面板工具变量回归对 2005-2012 年的全国调查进行纵向分析。我们的分析表明，与优势群体（印度教前种姓和 OBC）相比，边缘化群体（印度教 SC/ST 和穆斯林）获得电力供应的可能性更高。在电力可靠性方面，在所有家庭都失去用电小时数的时期，边缘群体与优势群体相比，每天损失的用电小时数更少。结果表明，电气化使边缘化家庭能够增加消费、增加资产并摆脱贫困，但与优势群体相比，这种影响较小。总体而言，农村地区的影响更为明显。这些发现对于衡量消费的替代方法和其他稳健性检查是稳健的。我们假设电气化增加了边缘群体的家庭福利，但并没有减少社会群体之间的绝对差距。