Alumni Feature | Swasti Raizada, Master’s in Public Policy ‘16

Swasti Raizada currently works as a Senior Consultant with Deloitte. Her experiences at the grassroot level, prior to joining MPP at NLSIU, inspired her to use her technical expertise for finding solutions to the wicked problems of policy.“As a student of civil engineering from NIT Jaipur, I still remember visiting Barefoot College back in 2010, where hundreds of women from sub-Saharan Africa were getting apprenticeships to become ‘Solar Engineers’ to light up villages. For me, it started the exploration journey of chasing issues of access, affordability, and adequacy and at times, even acceptability of technology solutions,” echoes Swasti. MPP provided her a ground for inquiry using strong theoretical frameworks. During the course, she collaborated with Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) for her dissertation and co-authored a paper, “Economic Effect Of Rooftop Photovoltaic Penetration On Retail Rates Of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company.” She was invited to present her findings at the 8th International Conference on Climate Change. After graduation, Swasti continues to pursue her passion in energy policy, energy economics and climate studies. In her current role at Deloitte, she has worked with The World Bank on one-of-the-first impact evaluation studies on energy access in seven states of North-East India using ESMAP framework. In another study by Climate Investment Fund, she was instrumental in conducting multiple stakeholder consultation workshops with the aim of designing financial instruments for scalability of rooftop solar for MSMEs. Swasti has also assisted distribution utilities and electricity regulators (SERCs) across states. Her work has been instrumental in driving the policy recommendations of the Sub-Committee, Ministry of Power and the new CERC (Terms and Conditions of Tariff) Regulations, 2019. She recently concluded a study on energy storage solutions and Li-ion cell manufacturing that directly fed into the Phased Manufacturing Program and policy framework of Gigafactories (NITI Aayog) in India. She has also represented India at the 1st BRICS Youth Summit and as a BRICS delegate at the XIX World Festival of Youth and Students.