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India – Reducing Reliance on Diesel

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  • India’s subsidy on diesel currently stands at about INR 950 billion (~ USD 19 billion).
  • Total diesel consumption was 64.74 million tons in 2011.
  • Diesel accounts for about 38% of India’s total fuel consumption.
  • 3 million ton of diesel is consumed in private power generation.

On 17th January 2013, the Indian government took a major step towards the deregulation of diesel prices. A monthly (duration, undecided) hike of INR 0.50 (USD 0.01) for retail customers and INR 11.00 (USD 0.20) increase in diesel price for bulk customers has been proposed. This move is expected to reduce India’s fuel subsidy burden by about INR 150 billion (~ USD 3 billion) annually.

Why such high dependence on diesel?

Agriculture and power generation account for 20% of India’s diesel demand.

The agriculture sector, the mainstay of India’s economy, accounts for about 12% of India’s total diesel demand. For a typical Indian farmer engaged in semi-mechanized farming operations, diesel can account for up to 20% of the input cost. This primarily consists of expenses towards fuel used to plough field and a substantial amount used to operate water pumps for irrigation purpose.

The power sector demand for diesel is largely driven by inadequate and inefficient power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. As per available statistics, there is about 10% supply-demand gap in India’s power sector, which results in regular outages. Though India added about 20GW of generation capacity in 2011, more would be required if the country aims to match global per capita electricity consumption standards of 2,700Kwh. At present, India’s per capita consumption is about 900Kwh.

This mismatch in supply-demand of power is met by private power generation, accounting for 8% of India’s diesel demand. Shopping malls, housing societies, large hospitals and telecom towers are among the major consumers of diesel-generated power.

  • Across the country, diesel generators operate for 8-10 hours every day, to supplement government-supplied electricity, thus leading to excess demand for diesel.

  • According to government statistics available for 2011, private power generators and mobile phone towers consumed 4.6% and 1.93% of diesel, respectively.

Power is also lost in the form of aggregate technical and commercial losses, which amount to about 30% of the total power produced in the country. With a generation capacity of 205GW, approximately 60,000MW is lost while transmitting and distributing power to end-users.

  • As an indicator, reduction of these losses by even 50% can ensure power to about 8 million diesel pumps of 5 HP rating thereby saving of about 4-8 million litres of diesel per hour.

  • If the government took necessary steps to improve power availability by 50% of the current outage time (assumed to be eight hours daily as an average) then it is estimated that it would lead to the reduction of diesel usage in private power generation by about 4.5 million litres annually.

So, how can the heavy reliance on diesel be reduced?

  • Reduce price differential – Minimizing the price differential between petrol (gasoline) and diesel, which can be up to 30%, could go a long way in helping reduce the burden on diesel. Artificially-kept low diesel prices (coupled with better efficiency of diesel engines vis-à-vis petrol engine) have led to increased demand for diesel vehicles in India, thus resulting in greater diesel consumption. In 2012, diesel cars accounted for more than 50% of all passenger vehicles sold in India. In 2011, approximately 16% of diesel sold in India was consumed by passenger vehicles. Economists have often questioned the rationale behind selling subsidized diesel to passenger vehicle owners who can afford it at the market price. Policymakers have also mulled options to discourage the sale of diesel cars, which include higher taxes on diesel cars. However, such moves have been opposed by the Indian automobile industry. Industry experts admit that parity in diesel and petrol prices can shift balance in favour of petrol vehicles with a sales ratio of 55:45. For instance, if achieved in 2013, this could reduce the consumption of diesel by 200 million litres (based on a conservative estimate).

  • Alternate sources of power – Adoption of renewable sources of energy for power generation could also help in reducing the current diesel burden of India. Renewable power currently accounts for only about 12% of total installed capacity. For instance, an Indian telecom service provider Airtel has installed a 100 KW solar power plant in one of its major routing centres in Northern India. This is expected to save 26,000 litres of diesel annually. The company is planning to install similar system in six other locations as well.

  • Other measures – Better roads and highways would result in improved fuel efficiency of vehicles leading to lesser use of vehicles. Efficient intermodal logistics infrastructure, with a larger share of railways would reduce dependence on road transport.


Diesel demand in India would remain high due to its close linkage with day-to-day economic activity. However, it is apparent that current diesel usages are more than the actual requirement due to infrastructural shortcomings in the power sector. Therefore, addressing these issues would directly help in reducing diesel demand in India.

In the near term, it would be interesting to see how the gradual hike in diesel prices impact the economy at large, and more so, the budgets of the common man. As with several such measures in the past, the step towards change has to be politically driven and with general elections in sight in 2014, only time will tell how effective this much awaited reform is for India.

Essential drugs
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Essential Drugs in India – Is It All About Affordability?

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For a pharmaceutical company, establishing a balance between production cost, profitability and affordability of the drug for consumers is a delicate matter, with natural temptation to push the aspect of affordability to the back seat in search for profit maximization. Large pharmaceutical corporations have often been criticized for not undertaking sufficient efforts to promote availability and affordability of essential medicines, especially in poor and developing countries. It seems that this criticism is slowly yielding positive results – several drugmakers, led by giants such as GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson, are intensifying their initiatives oriented at ensuring the availability and affordability of their drugs in less affluent markets. These efforts are mirrored in the “Access to Medicine Index”, published in 2012 by Access to Medicine Foundation, that clearly indicates drugmakers’ response to rising social pressure to provide affordable drugs.

The drugmakers’ initiatives span a range of actions – differential and reduced pricing, technology transfers under license agreements, as well as donations. For instance Gilead, a US-based biopharmaceutical company, provides waiver of royalty payments to licensed manufacturing partners of its HIV medicines. Since 2011, it has also operated a five-year single-drug donation program, which involves donation of 450,000 vials of AmBisome (amphotericin B liposomal), for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis in developing countries, including in India. Another example is Merck India, which has been selling its anti-diabetic drug, Januvia, at one-fifth of the US price since 2008.

But pharma companies are not alone in their efforts. Indian government has introduced a policy aimed at increasing the availability of essential drugs at affordable prices. In 2011, the government proposed to increase the number of drugs remaining under the purview of the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy 2011 to 348, up from initial 74. This policy has been amended in 2012 to include 652 commonly-used drugs under 27 therapeutic areas. Introduction of this policy is expected to result in a price drop of 10% or more for about two-thirds of essential drugs available in the Indian market.

While these combined corporate and government efforts are likely to boost access to inexpensive essential drugs, Indian government actions might, ironically, have an adverse impact on the industry. Several pharmaceutical corporations operating in the Indian market are already averse to these new government policies, citing erosion in both top and bottom line results. There are at least two more negative repercussions potentially arriving from the government’s actions:

  • In a scenario, where the provision of price-capped drugs becomes unprofitable for the drugmaker, the pharmaceutical company may decide to discontinue the availability of these medicines in the Indian market. This took place prior to the introduction of the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy 2011, when 27 of the 74 drugs under price control were discontinued. Such a scenario would render these price control efforts counter-productive, to say the least.

  • At the same time, quite possibly, small domestic generic drug manufacturers are likely to be tempted to raise the prices of their low-cost drugs closer to the designated price-cap level, which in their case would mean an increase in the average price of drugs. This would, without a doubt, negatively impact consumers, particularly in smaller tier II and tier III cities across the country.

Increasing social pressure to provide affordable drugs is forcing both corporations and governments to introduce efforts to control drug prices. While these price control measures are necessary to make essential drugs affordable to the Indian public, these efforts may backfire in the long run. Possible drug discontinuation and average price hikes ultimately point towards corporations placing profit maximization over consumer needs.

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Solar Photovoltaic Market – Contemporary Scenario and Emerging Trends

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As concerns about global climate change become more salient with growing population, depleting natural energy sources and subsequent rise in traditional energy prices, the search for alternative sources of power generation has become a prominent societal issue.

New sources of energy are typically not as cost competitive as traditional sources such as coal and natural gas, thus, local governments across various countries have rolled out incentives for private players to invest in the renewable energy sector, thus driving innovation and creation of cost-effective solutions.

 

Read our report – Solar Photovoltaic Market – Contemporary Scenario and Emerging Trends

 

 

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