Nikit Abhyankar

Nikit Abhyankar joins the 2007 cohort of IPER as a PhD student. At IPER, Nikit plans to study the political economy of energy policy, energy markets, and climate policy from an institutional and governance perspective with a focus on India and other developing countries. He foresees himself becoming part of a public interest group and pursuing research based advocacy for socially relevant but neglected problems with an objective of sustainable and equitable development.

Raised by progressive parents who are involved in various social movements in India, Nikit got an early exposure to the dynamics and politics of various social issues. Immediately after finishing his undergraduate education in Electrical Engineering in 2003, he joined Wipro Technologies, one of the largest software corporations in India. However, soon he realized that there are ample more worthy causes than writing computer codes. This triggered his first concrete step toward his goal of using his skills and knowledge for socially relevant problems – Nikit left his job and joined Prayas, an NGO engaged in public interest advocacy and policy analysis in the energy sector, electricity in particular.

At Prayas, Nikit had the opportunity to work on various aspects of current energy problems and to interact with a large cross section of people – from grassroot activists to decision makers in the energy bureaucracy to researchers in leading US universities. On behalf of Prayas, he intervened in the electricity regulatory process in the state of Maharashtra in India as an authorized consumer advocate and participated in many regulatory proceedings. He has analyzed various policies and regulations aimed at power sector reforms and critiqued the reforms led by the Asian Development Bank in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India. He has also developed a financial model for predicting the future tariff on electricity generation projects and conducted research on pricing models for electricity generation. Training other civil society organizations, consumer groups and people’s movements for more informed and effective participation in the decision making process also formed a major part of his work in India. In January 2006, he attended the training program conducted by The World Bank and Public Utility Research Center of University of Florida where he had the opportunity to interact with regulators and policy makers in the infrastructure sector from over 35 countries across the world.

Nikit has recently completed a Master’s in Economics from University of Pune, India. He has received awards and honors for excellent academic performance throughout his academic career. Nikit is an avid mountaineer and has been regularly going on expeditions to the Himalayas and Sahyadris (mountain ranges in the western part of India).