India accounts for a third of the world's population without access to electricity and about 40% of those without access to modern energy. Such a situation exists despite several initiatives and policies to support poor households. Alarmed by the gravity of the situation, the government has recently announced an ambitious programme of rural electrification. This paper looks into the energy access situation of India and argues that rural electrification alone is unlikely to resolve the energy access problem because of low penetration of electricity in the energy mix of the poor. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.