HUMAN RIGHTS TO UNIVERSAL ENERGY ACCESS AND THE DIFFICULTIES IN ATTAINING IT WITH CURRENT LEGAL AND POLICY PARAMETERS
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Abstract
According to Energy Access Outlook 2017, 1.1 billion people are still lacking electricity and about 2.8 billion are currently living without clean cooking facilities. Lack of energy access stifles income generating activities and hampers the provision of basic services such as health care and education. Energy access is not only a critical component of reducing rural poverty and drudgery but also one of the fundamental conditions for holistic rural development. Providing universal access to electricity and clean cooking facilities will result in preventing pre-mature death and pollution and will eventually lead to eradication of poverty, achieving gender equality, improved maternal health, improvement in productivity etc.
Electricity has become one of the basic amenities like food and water. Access to electricity is a legal right and its denial will amount to violation of human rights. Over the past 60 years India has taken rapid strides in the development of electricity both in terms of enhancing power generation as well as in making power available to widely distributed geographical boundaries. Even in the presence of Electricity Act 2003 and several other legislations still the task of transforming the power sector is yet to be achieved. India’s energy sector is increasingly unable to deliver a secure supply of energy and growing demand and fuel imports.
According to UDHR everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living and universal access to energy services is acknowledged as a component part of this right. But till date there are no international treaties that specifically refer to access to energy services as a right. Considering energy access as a human right will impose obligations on states both at national and international level.
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