Brief DescriptionAs per 2011 census, of the 1.21 billion people in India, 833 million (68.8%) live in rural areas. Although a majority of rural households depend on farm income, small land holding and low agricultural productivity make it necessary for farmers to look for additional sources of income. It is estimated that nearly half of India's rural households are poor in terms of insecure livelihoods options. Lack of access to reliable, affordable and clean energy plagues most rural livelihoods sectors in India.In recent years, a systematic effort to promote rural livelihoods has been undertaken in India. The focus of these efforts is mostly on horticulture, dairy, poultry, fisheries, handicrafts, and a range of other cottage / village industries, etc. Achieving higher and stable productivity in these rural livelihood sectors generally requires access to a reliable energy supply – electric, mechanical and/ or thermal. However, a large proportion of Indian rural livelihood locations are unserved or underserved with the necessary reliable energy for improving rural livelihoods, in particular grid electricity and LPG. To obtain a reliable electricity supply, many rural livelihoods enterprises turn to expensive-to-operate diesel generators. Biomass fuels are also becoming expensive Renewable energy can provide a more affordable and reliable alternative to diesel generators and inefficient biomass use for rural livelihoods enterprises.The proposed project aims at demonstrating and developing the market for Renewable Energy Technology Packages for Rural Livelihoods (RETPRLs) in three selected states (Assam, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh). The project will work with carefully chosen RETPRLs for an initial group of rural districts with a strong unserved and underserved energy supply situation for key ongoing rural livelihoods initiatives. The proposed RETPRLs include: solar lighting systems; solar and / or biomass waste – powered micro grids for common facilities; solar irrigation pumps; improved commercial biomass cook-stoves; poultry-litter based biogas plants; poultry litter based briquetting units; solar dryers for vegetables, spices and fish; solar powered milk chillers; and cold rooms for storage of horticultural produce. The target livelihoods sectors include poultry, fisheries, dairy, horticulture, khadi (homespun cloth) and silk weaving, bamboo and commercial cooking (e.g. tea stalls, sweet shops, and street food vendors). The RETPRLs will be developed into carefully integrated packages and then demonstrated, replicated and scaled up by the project. Component 1 deals with the development and deployment of key RETPRLs. Under this component, the initial implementation (demonstration) of RETPRLs will be undertaken in 15 clusters, covering 1,500 rural household enterprises; then later the interventions will be replicated to cover 28,500 rural household enterprises. Component 2 deals with the development of the necessary supply chain for RE technology supply and service providers to enhance rural livelihoods. Component 3 deals with providing policy and regulatory support for RE - rural livelihoods applications. Component 4 deals with the financial support for decentralised RE - rural livelihoods applications.Over the economic lifetime (10 years) of the RETPRLs deployed with project support, cumulative direct emission reductions will be 662,742 tCO2.