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Purpose This study aims to identify the operational and financial risks associated with the city gas distribution project in India and suggest appropriate strategies to mitigate them. Design/methodology/approach This study aims to identify the operational and financial risks associated with the city gas distribution project in India and suggest appropriate strategies to mitigate them. The survey data is evaluated using factor analysis to understand the latent structure of the critical risk factors. Second, the author uses Situation, Actor and Process–Learning, Action and Performance framework to suggest the mitigation strategies for the identified operational and financial risk factors. Findings The research identified five critical risk factors and suggested 39 mitigation strategies to address operational and risk factors impacting CGD projects. The findings of this research will enable the CGD companies to formulate long-term strategies for their business and adopt proactive measures to mitigate the operational and financial risks causing delay and increasing project costs. This study also highlights the importance of government support in developing a conducive environment for CGD industry to thrive. Originality/value The CGD projects are critical for natural gas growth in India’s energy mix. The project delay leads to a rise in the total cost involved and increases the payback period for the CGD companies. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this research is first of its kind that identifies the critical operational and financial risks affecting CGD projects in India and suggests the mitigating strategies for them.

Purpose This study aims to identify and rank the operational and financial risks causing a delay in the commencement of the city gas distribution project in India. Design/methodology/approach This study reviews the literature to identify operational and financial risks variables associated with infrastructure projects. Followed by a survey to isolate and assess the critical risk factors for city gas distribution network project in India. The survey data is evaluated using factor analysis to understand the latent structure of the critical risk factors. Second, the author ranks the identified variables as per significance by using the mean score method. Findings Five critical risk factors with 20 variables were extracted and assessed to build more understanding of their significance and impact on city gas distribution network project. Originality/value This study is the first attempt to follow the management approach to identify and rank operational and financial risks impacting city gas distribution project.

Demand response (DR) programs are getting wide acceptance among consumers in different parts of the world, and many utility establishments are looking for adopting such programs to meet the growing electricity demand. This paper discusses major focus areas to be considered while planning for introducing direct load control (DLC), one of the popular DR programs, by various stakeholders around the world. One of today's most extensively employed qualitative analytical tools, content analysis, was used in this study. The systematic software-based content analysis procedure followed in this study can be used as a reference for conducting similar studies in any frontier of science. The implementation strategy of DLC around the world was analyzed, and information related to different parameters, such as benefits, challenges, type of load, channels for awareness/marketing, implementation requirements, evaluation methods, and reasons for failure, was discussed in detail. The results of this research have far-fetching implications in effective policy designs for integrated energy planning to implement appropriate projects for sustainable developments. Based on the results, a conditional analysis was carried out to explore the feasibility of introducing DLC in Kuwait, which is one of the highest per capita electricity consuming countries in the world. Two widely used loads, such as air-conditioning units and water heaters, are identified as suitable loads for targeting DLC in Kuwait. These two loads account for a load share of 83% in the residential sector, which consumes 60% of electricity produced in the country. An action plan for implementing the suggested program for a pilot project also presented.

The general insurance sector has been dynamically changing and upgrading its business operations in the field of product development, product pricing, underwriting, actuary, claims management, risk management, asset and liability management, reinsurance and customer relationship management to be in line with ever changing regulatory and non-regulatory business norms over the years. These changes arise out of increased emphasis on liberalization and open market systems has transformed the orientation of domestic general insurance markets from that of sellers to a buyer's market. In the past two decades of post privatization operations, the sector has witnessed many challenges in terms of performance. The present study attempts to provide an insight into the behavior of the variables, which determines the performance of general insurance business in India. The formulation of econometric models based on the behavior of the variables influencing the performance of general insurance business in India across the segments of fire marine and miscellaneous will facilitate better decision-making and risk management processes of the players in the industry. The findings of the study are likely to help the policy formulators in bringing needed modifications to the existing policy and provisions to give further boost to the industry.

Enduring expansions and advancement in the knowledge driven energy-economy era promise a power system that is cost-effectively competent, environmentally responsive, flawless and operationally acquiescent. This imminent power system will depend on latest communication technologies, computational easiness, and monitoring and control strategies attributable to the consumers or end users. Amid the numerous advances related to this development, a strategic and significant component is demand side management (DSM). Demand response can play an important and pertinent role in the milieu of DSM, and incentive-based demand response program (IBDRP) is getting customer focus in many parts of the world. This study tries to bring out major aspects to be considered while introducing IBDRP in retail electricity markets. Document analysis, a well-known qualitative research methodology, is used for analyzing various IBDRP schemes practiced globally, with the help of the ATLAS.ti software and utilizing the snowball sampling technique. For better understanding, the results of the axial coding are arranged in three stages: pre-implementation stage, implementation stage, and post-implementation stage. Based on the importance and their frequency of appearance, ten most prominent codes were identified, and the strength of their interrelationships is presented on a multilevel scale with three different ranks. One of the major and important outcomes of this research is that, with the help of the proposed conceptual framework, a proper implementation framework can be built, which can be used for developing most appropriate IBDRP for any retail electricity market. Keywords: Document analysis, Demand response, Consumer participation, Implementation framework, ATLAS.ti

Since the export of fossil fuel is the backbone of Kuwait's economy, the enormous upsurge in the internal fuel consumption creates anguish and bane. At present, 46% of the internal fossil fuel consumption is used for electricity generation. The increase in fuel consumption hurled Kuwait as one of the highest per capita electricity consuming as well as CO 2 emitting countries in the world. Consumers pay only 6% of the production cost of electricity—the government subsidizes the balance—, which is one of the major reasons behind the high electricity consumption in the country. Any reduction in electricity consumption can positively reflect on both per capita electricity consumption and CO 2 emission. Additionally, the saved fossil fuel can be exported to generate revenue to support the country's economy. Worldwide, demand side management (DSM) is considered as an effective tool to curtail electricity demand. The objective of this review paper is to explore the available literature to find out the most suitable DSM measures to control the growth of per capita electricity consumption in Kuwait. After conducting a detailed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, it is concluded that incentive-based demand response programs can be considered as one of the most suitable solutions to address this problem.

India had its first act on Power Sector in 1910. Till 1991, lack of significant structural changes and achievements has labeled these 80 years as nascent stage for Indian Power Sector. In 1991, various reforms were initiated by the Government to deal with the shortage of power and to attract private investment. Though further reforms initiated by Electricity Act 2003 attempted to address many issues of the Indian power sector; losses and bad financial health of distribution sector is still an area of concern. To manage the distribution segment in more efficient way there is a need of third generation reforms. This paper critically evaluates the salient features of Electricity Act 2003, present scenario of Indian Power Sector with special emphasis on distribution losses and the concern areas which are plaguing the sector. The review also foresees the role of Electricity Amendment Bill 2014 in the introduction of retail in India by separating distribution business from supply business.

Natural gas has been gaining popularity as a fuel for the next century across the globe. The Indian government has been pushing to boost the natural gas share in the energy mix to 15% by 2030. City Gas Distribution (CGD) plays a crucial role in meeting the set target as the Indian government has given it a tag of priority sector. The Indian Government has been aggressively expanding the CGD footprints across India by conducting the bidding rounds for new Geographic Areas (GAs). This paper provides a comprehensive review of city gas distribution and delivers insights on developing a sustainable natural gas business in India.

Electricity is a foundation for basic development needs and essential for the betterment of lives. Limited or no access of electricity has a negative impact on growth and affects basic services like health, agriculture and study, which finally touches all the lives and livelihoods (Samanta 2015; Burlig and Preonas 2016). In India, a significant ratio of rural households still does not have access to electricity (Bhattacharyya 2006). Hence, un-electrified villages and lenient definition of electrified village are discouraging the goal of ‘24*7 Power to all.’

Owing to countless advancements in information technology, all residential consumers, in any part of the world, are empowered to contribute to demand response (DR) programs, to manage their electricity usage and to cut associated expenses using a suitable energy management system. Solutions based on consumer participation in meeting the growing electricity demand are carried out through different programs, and incentive-based demand response (IBDR) programs play an important role in these circumstances. However, introducing such programs to any new market needs consumers' willingness along with a good policy support. This study assesses the willingness and interest of consumers to participate in different IBDR programs and the associated need for developing policies, based on the consumers’ feedback, in a subsidized electricity market such as that of Kuwait. A survey was conducted to get feedback from consumers on three different IBDR programs and four incentive schemes. After establishing the association between incentivization and load reduction, and identifying consumers’ choice on the most preferred IBDR programs and incentive schemes, the results were used to assess the need for different policy strategies for a typical subsidized market. The results of this study can be taken as a reference for formulating policies and programs for similar markets. The analysis on the impact of the programs indicates that by implementing IBDR programs, in addition to the financial benefit to both consumers and implementer, Kuwait can maintain its reserve capacity without any further addition of power plants.

PurposeThe fact that complaints regarding general insurance claims are three times as numerous as those of life insurance claims suggests that claims behaviour of general insurers be investigated to minimize operating losses and ensure operational excellence. This paper seeks to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachStudy of variance and factor analysis has been undertaken to achieve the objective of identifying factors which govern claims in general insurance business. In order to understand the dependency of claims over the sectors and segments, statistical hypothesis testing along with cross tab analysis has been conducted. The study also evaluates the relationship of these factors over the sectors and segments by running a multiple regression.FindingsAn empirical result of the study proves that there exists an association between type of sectors, i.e. public and private and segments of insurance namely fire, marine and miscellaneous. The study also suggests a claim projection model for the general insurance players.Research limitations/implicationsExclusion of specialized players due to the reason being new entrants and in order to maintain common parlance of sectors may be a limitation to this study.Originality/valueThe study recommends that insurance players should not treat the claims settlement strategies in isolation of segments. The claims projection model as suggested in the study may prove to be extremely helpful in projecting the claims and in turn reduce the increasing underwriting losses.