SHILLONG, April 11: Meghalaya has been ranked 6th among eight smaller states in NITI Aayog’s State Energy & Climate Index (SECI), the Round 1 results of which were declared on Monday.
In this category, Goa emerged as the top-performing state, followed by Tripura and Manipur. The rankings are based on 2019-20 data.
The average SECI score of Meghalaya was 29.4. The state had the lowest scores under the Clean Energy Initiatives and the Energy Efficiency categories among the smaller states.
In DISCOM’s performance, Meghalaya scored 47.9 while in access, affordable and reliability, it scored 30.9. In Clean Energy Initiatives and Energy Efficiency, the state scored 1.9 and 4 points respectively.
In Environmental Sustainability, the state scored 39.8 while in new initiatives, its score was 2.8.
The SECI Round 1 ranks the states’ performance on six parameters – (1) DISCOM’s Performance (2) Access, Affordability and Reliability of Energy (3) Clean Energy Initiatives (4) Energy Efficiency (5) Environmental Sustainability and (6) New Initiatives.
The parameters are further divided into 27 indicators. Based on the composite SECI Round I score, the states and the UTs are categorized into three groups: Front Runners, Achievers and Aspirants.
The states have been categorized based on size and geographical differences as larger states, smaller states and UTs. Gujarat, Kerala, and Punjab have been ranked as the top three performers in the category of larger states.
This edition of the report revealed that some of the important data is not available at the state-level. Emphasis was laid on developing a robust mechanism for capturing such data so that it can be incorporated in future editions of the report.
Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog said there is a need to convert efforts towards achieving the ‘Panchamrit’ targets announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP-26, Glasgow into a people’s movement.
In order to do this, he said, the role of the states is going to be critical. Governance innovation and mutual learning by the states shall go a long way in improving outcomes and the SECI Round 1 is the right step in this direction, he said.
Dr VK Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog, said synergy and partnership between the Centre and the states will be critical for achieving energy and climate-related goals and making the country self-reliant in the energy sector. He said after extensive discussions with stakeholders, several key parameters were identified to track and rank the performance of the states in this report.
Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog said achieving the ambitious climate targets would require a conducive policy environment to encourage investment. He also remarked that the SECI Round 1 will help initiate a dialogue with the states on the energy sector so that much required policy improvements can be made.
