India has made giant strides in the past decade in making electricity accessible to its citizens. Electricity generation has reached an all-time high, while the grid has expanded to reach villages that hitherto had not seen an electric pole. Despite this, large swathes of the country live without access to reliable and affordable electricity. This is largely because of system inefficiencies and institutional barriers that are relics of a power sector set up in yester years. And distribution utilities are the institutions that directly exhibit these inefficiencies as they link to the consumers. ©