Dalit Villages Left in the Dark: Caste Shapes Electrification in Uttar Pradesh

📍 What Was Asked

This study investigates unequal outcomes in India’s national rural electrification program in Uttar Pradesh by asking two questions: whether Dalits—the lowest group in India’s caste hierarchy—received less attention when the state electrified rural communities, and whether the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the state’s Dalit party, reduced that inequality.

📊 What Data and Design Showed

• Analysis uses data from 100,000 villages across Uttar Pradesh.
• A regression discontinuity (RD) design leverages variation in the BSP's electoral success to test whether political representation altered implementation outcomes.

🔎 Key Findings

• Villages inhabited solely by Dalits were 20 percentage points less likely to be covered by the electrification program than villages without any Dalits.
• The RD analysis indicates that the BSP’s electoral victories did not reduce this coverage gap: electoral success failed to eliminate the disparity.
• Together, these results provide robust evidence of unequal implementation tied to caste identity.

⚖️ Why It Matters

The findings reveal both the magnitude and persistence of caste-based inequality in the execution of democratic public policy: even with a political party representing Dalit interests, disadvantaged villages experienced systematically lower program coverage. This highlights limits to representational remedies for implementation disparities and raises questions about how policy delivery intersects with social hierarchies.