In 2023, 99.5% of India’s population was reported to have access to electricity. But access is only one part of the story. For households and firms, the quality and reliability of supply matter just as much: frequent and prolonged outages, voltage fluctuations and unpredictable interruptions can disrupt everyday life, reduce productivity, and impose additional costs through investments in backup power. Being connected to the grid does not necessarily mean receiving reliable electricity, but measuring that reliability remains a challenge.
In this explainer, we study the power outage reporting practices of 72 distribution companies in India and ask: is outage data even available, and is it reported consistently? We compare the available data across different dimensions to highlight gaps and inconsistencies in current reporting practices, and argue that better and more standardised outage data is a necessary first step towards understanding, and ultimately improving, the reliability of electricity supply.