Toward a Gender-Responsive ‘Just Transition’ in India

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India, now the world’s third-largest renewable energy producer, is making steady progress toward its 2070 net-zero target. As the country shifts away from fossil fuels, it must ensure that this transition does not worsen existing economic inequalities. The ‘Just Transition’ framework offers a pathway to a more inclusive and equitable decarbonisation process, while creating opportunities for decent work and social equity.

In 2024, India emerged as the world’s second-largest consumer of coal to meet its energy needs, surpassing North America and Europe. Coal generates 70 percent of India’s electricity and remains a major source of employment in states such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha. The transition away from coal poses serious challenges, including regional disparities, gendered labour markets, caste-based exclusions, and informal employment structures.

This article explores how a gender-responsive approach to skill development in coal-dependent regions can support a more equitable transition to renewable energy. Why is a Just Transition essential, and how can skill-building policies bridge the existing gaps in achieving this goal?

The transition away from coal poses serious challenges, including regional disparities, gendered labour markets, caste-based exclusions, and informal employment structures.

Just Transition: Necessity and Challenges

India’s coal industry, rooted in colonial exploitation, remains deeply unequal—particularly for women. These inequities, compounded by the prevalence of informal labour, make the transition away from coal especially complex. Coal-rich regions often lack basic infrastructure, economic resilience, and institutional preparedness. Fragmented governance and corruption further hinder coordinated efforts.

In India’s coal-bearing states, women are primarily employed in informal roles such as truck loading and coal sorting, rendering their contributions largely invisible. According to Coal India Limited (CIL), only 8.5 percent of its formal workforce comprised women in 2024. However, in the informal coal sector, women make up a significant portion of the workforce, though they are difficult to account for given the lack of documentation. In addition to the hazardous working conditions, these women face the “triple burden” of caregiving, unpaid labour, and insecure employment. Without land titles or formal recognition, they are often excluded from compensation schemes and resettlement in post-coal communities.

Transitions in countries such as the UK, Poland, and Germany show that post-coal economies often marginalise women in emerging industries. Given the lack of gender-sensitive policies, women are often excluded from land use decisions and pushed into low-wage agricultural work, resulting in continued economic insecurity.

Transitions in countries such as the UK, Poland, and Germany show that post-coal economies often marginalise women in emerging industries.

In the UK, the decline of the coal sector in the 1980s demonstrated how neglecting women’s economic roles led to long-term unemployment, mental health challenges, and an uptick in domestic violence. Similarly, in Poland and Germany, the prioritisation of male-dominated industries excluded women from emerging job markets, reinforcing existing gender divides in labour. These examples underscore the need for India to adopt a gender-responsive Just Transition framework.

Skill Development for Energy Transition 

Given the structural inequities in India’s coal sector and the heightened vulnerabilities the female workforce faces in the shift to clean energy, inclusive skill development is essential. Yet, existing upskilling initiatives in coal-reliant regions remain limited in scope and impact. Most initiatives focus on short-term technical training with weak links to job placement or broader livelihood strategies. While a few initiatives incorporate gender-sensitive design, they fail to address key barriers, including limited mobility, care responsibilities, and limited formal education among women. Informal coal workers, primarily women, are as a result often excluded from formal transition programmes.

Initiatives in Odisha and Madhya Pradesh, such as Self Help Group (SHG)-linked solar skilling programmes, show promise but lack scale and labour market integration, often skewing towards male participation. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), women make up 40 percent of nationally certified candidates, yet their participation in energy-related fields remains as low as 10 percent. Similarly, under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), women composed over 73 percent of the trained beneficiaries in states like Karnataka, but their training was largely confined to “feminised sectors”. These examples highlight the need for closer alignment with local coal contexts and the removal of gender-specific barriers for the skilling initiatives to be truly effective.

While a few initiatives incorporate gender-sensitive design, they fail to address key barriers, including limited mobility, care responsibilities, and limited formal education among women.

International examples offer valuable insights for India. Spain’s gender quotas in green tenders have increased women’s participation in renewables. South Africa’s community energy hubs have linked training to local ownership and long-term employment, offering pathways for women’s legal empowerment—particularly important given their limited ownership in clean energy. Denmark's IndustriALL union-led reskilling programmes demonstrate how transitions can advance gender equity by challenging and reshaping traditional labour norms.

In India, skilling must function as a redistributive mechanism for inclusion in the emerging green economy, not merely as an economic tool. This requires community-informed curricula, wraparound services like childcare and transport, gender-disaggregated targets, safe training environments, and mentorship. Without such measures, there’s a real risk of deepening gender segregation in the renewable energy workforce.

Policy Implications and Opportunities for India

To mainstream gender equity in its energy transition, India can undertake the following actions:

• Leverage existing platforms like PMKVY and DDU-GKY: These national skilling schemes should embed green job modules, apply gender quotas, and offer localised training that is aligned with renewable energy sectors.
• Adapt programmes to regional contexts: Skilling initiatives must address structural barriers such as unpaid care work, informal labour, and limited mobility. They should also incorporate measures for safety and protection from gender-based violence to ensure women’s participation. For example, CFK Africa’s vocational training in Kenya integrates technical education for young women with safe spaces and GBV support, offering a valuable model for context-sensitive skilling in India’s coal regions.
• Scale grassroots models: The Barefoot College trains rural and semi-literate women to become solar engineers—known as “Solar Mamas”—equipping them with long-term skills and viable employment pathways in the renewable energy sector. The Barli Development Institute for Rural Women in Madhya Pradesh provides solar and renewable energy training to tribal and low-income women, blending technical education with social empowerment. Similarly, the  Solar Urja Lamp project in Bihar further demonstrates how decentralised, women-led energy solutions can accelerate gender equity and energy access. Such approaches should be scaled and adapted to other coal-affected regions as part of a Just Transition framework.
• Empower Self-Help Groups (SHGs)via the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM): SHGs offer a decentralised, community-rooted platform for delivering skill-building and supporting enterprise development, particularly among women in coal-dependent regions. Odisha’s Bijlee Didis— which trains women in solar maintenance and micro-grid management through SHGs—demonstrates the potential of these groups to empower women’s leadership in clean energy transitions.
• Improve institutional coordination between: Coordination between the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), state rural development bodies, and local panchayats is critical. These stakeholders must work together to co-develop place-based transition plans that respond to local socio-economic and gendered needs.
• Invest in enabling infrastructure: Supporting infrastructure such as safe transportation, accessible childcare, and reliable digital connectivity is essential to ensure women can participate in training and secure post-training employment. For example, the Click-On Kaduna digital skills programme in Nigeria provided women with free childcare and meals during training, directly addressing barriers to participation. Similarly, Germany’s national skilling efforts have been supported by large-scale investments in childcare infrastructure, including €1 billion for new day care facilities and €1.5 billion to expand all-day care in primary grades, enabling greater labour force participation among women trainees and workers.

Conclusion

For India to achieve its renewable energy goals, it must adopt a comprehensive Just Transition framework—one that brings communities along rather than leaving them behind. At the heart of this effort lies skill development. For upskilling to be truly effective, it must go beyond technical training to address the social and gendered barriers that shape participation. By taking a proactive and inclusive approach, India can steer its energy transition toward a low-carbon future that is both equitable and grounded in local realities.

Saee Rege is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation

• Gender
• GENDER ISSUES
• India
• 2070 net zero target
• energy transition & skill development
• energy transition india
• gender equality in the energy transition
• just transition framework
• just transition framework in india

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