1. Context:

India’s rural economy, comprising 119 million male and female farmers and 34 million microenterprises owned by men and women, is constrained by unreliable electricity access; more than four million microenterprises mention lack of reliable electricity as the biggest challenge to their business. The electricity gap for the rural economy could be addressed through clean energy innovations, having a market potential of over $50 billion. Currently, very few such innovations exist, with deployment limited to hundreds. They are struggling to scale due to a lack of policy and financial support, and are unable to unlock support due to a lack of evidence, creating a vicious circle.

Given the above context, CEEW and Villgro Innovation Foundation have jointly rolled out a novel initiative “Powering Livelihoods”, with a vision to bolster India’s rural economy through the scaling up of clean energy solutions. The initiative is providing capital, technical and sectoral growth support to enterprises to enable large-scale commercial deployments of clean energy-powered livelihood appliances.

In August 2020, a cohort of six enterprises was officially launched under the Powering Livelihoods (PL) initiative, and currently, the programme supports about nineteen enterprises in its programme. Over five years from the official launch, the initiative aims to continue capturing and measuring the impact of DRE livelihood solutions on its end-users. Round I and II of the Impact Assessment have been completed, involving over 700 and 800 end users of clean energy-powered livelihood technologies, respectively. We are now preparing to conduct Round III of the Impact Assessment study in two parts, targeting around 2000 end users (~1500 end users for Impact Assessment and ~500 end users for Sales Funnel Insights study).

2. Objective and Scope of Work

Research objectives

We aim to conduct a primary survey (quantitative) of end-users who are indirectly supported through the programme. Basic details of the end-users have been captured through the Know Your Customer (KYC) exercise at the time of equipment sale for the impact study. These details will be fed into the respective questionnaire. Moreover, KYC information will be used to sample respondents for the survey.  Below are the details of the study that shall be conducted in this exercise as part of the programme - 

• Impact Assessment of Decentralised Renewable Energy Technologies

‘Impact Assessment’ survey - Quantitative

A survey of around 1500 end-users (Cross-Sectional) in 18 states of India (Major states to be covered would be Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha) is planned for the study. The majority of respondents are in rural areas. The survey will be administered in the local language of each state. 

Languages: Survey will be conducted in at least 8 Indian languages

Rolling Survey: We are looking to conduct a mix of telephonic and field surveys for impact study, with 70% data collection on-ground and 30% over the phone. For the impact study, telephonic surveys will be conducted for the selected respondents who are in the geographies where there is a dispersed deployment of technologies. This split could evolve by +/- 5% based on study progress.

Duration of the survey: The questionnaire will consist of up to 30 questions, and each survey will take about 20 - 25 minutes.

The audio evidence has to be provided for the surveys.

• Sales Funnel Insights Study (also ‘Effectiveness survey’)

‘Sales Conversion Insights’ survey - Quantitative

A survey of around 500 end-users (Cross-Sectional) in at least 7 states of India (Major states to be covered would be Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and Uttarakhand) is planned for the study. The majority of respondents are in rural areas. The survey will be administered in the local language of each state. This sample would be tentative; bidders are advised to quote their price on a per survey unit charge basis to ensure accurate costing.

Languages: Survey will be conducted in at least 5 Indian languages

Rolling Survey: We are looking to conduct telephonic interviews for respondents in this study.

Duration of the survey: The questionnaire will consist of up to 15 questions, and each survey would take about 10 - 15 minutes.

The audio evidence has to be provided for the surveys.

3.Out of scope

The agency/organisation is not responsible for the design of the questionnaires or research.

4. Timeline

The proposed assignment will be completed within 3-4 months from its start date. The engagement is expected to start from January 2026. The bidder is requested to propose a detailed work plan along with the deliverable timeline schedule. The bidder will be responsible for the timelines and deliverables, which will be finalised between the Institution and the successful bidder. 

5. Qualifications

The bidder must show the following qualifications over the last 3 years:

• Experience in conducting field surveys or assessments related to livelihoods, rural enterprises, or technology adoption.
• Understanding and experience of India’s renewable energy, energy access, or broader rural development ecosystem (preferred but not mandatory).
• Prior experience working with self-help groups (SHGs), farmer producer organisations (FPOs), or other community-based enterprises will be an added advantage.
• Experience in conducting large-scale (>1000 end users) studies in rural India in more than at least 5 states. 
• Team of enumerators with at least 1 year of experience in large-scale data collection.
• Team of supervisors with at least 3 years of experience in large-scale data collection and quality supervision.
• Team should include female enumerators to ensure gender-sensitive engagement and comfort of women respondents.
• The organisation should have an audio-recording facility embedded in its data collection software.
• The organisation should have field/format in their data collection form to capture the respondent’s image and record the GPS location.

6. Proposal

• The bidder must send two separate emails. The first email must contain the technical proposal, and the second email must contain the financial proposal. The emails must use the following subject lines:
  • Email 1 subject: Technical Proposal for ‘Impact and Sales Funnel insights study data collection’ | Powering Livleihoods - Name of Bidder
    • ​The technical proposal (not more than 10 pages) must include the following:
    • An understanding of the problem statement.
    • A statement explaining the approach that the consultant would apply for carrying out the proposed project. This would include a proposed work plan and a timeline. Also, capture the draft methodology.
    • Resumes/bios of the team members who will be engaged under the proposed contract, along with their proposed position and role in the team and how the person’s current experience will contribute to the proposed approach (maximum 5 pages each, segregated based on qualifications identified in section 6).
    • Staff organogram
    • Concise explanation of why your organisation/consortium, as well as the proposed team, are the best-suited option for this assignment (1 page).
    • Existing contacts and relationships that the consultant will rely on to complete the project.
    • Relevant ongoing and completed assignments in the last 3 years.
    • The response rate of the last five telephonic surveys conducted by the agency
    • Any comments or proposed additions to the terms of reference.
    • The bidder may be requested to present the proposal within 7 days from the last day of submission of the bid.
  • Email 2 subject: Financial Proposal for ‘Impact and Sales Funnel insights study data collection’ | Powering Livelihoods  - Name of Bidder
    • ​A financial proposal should contain an estimation of costs as per major expense categories:
    • Total aggregate professional costs, clearly indicating the hourly/daily rates for each team member (category or individual), along with names and designations of the staff members under given categories (if categorisation has been done).
    • Taxes, as applicable.
    • Special discounts that are being offered owing to our status of being a non-profit entity to be considered and separately stated.
    • DO NOT attach both documents to one email. The emails must be sent to priyatam.yasaswi@ceew.in and manish.singh@ceew.in, marking  divya.gaur@ceew.in in CC. Proposals sent to any other email address will be disqualified.
      The financial proposal may be password protected. In such a case, the bidder is requested to share the password at the above email addresses.
• Our indicated date for submitting the proposal is “5th December 2025”. If the indicated date is not feasible, the bidder must suggest an alternate date within two business days of issuance of the RFP.
• The proposal submission deadline has now been revised to 09 December 2025. Please note that this is the final extension for submitting the proposal.
• Bidders must also confirm their interest/inability to participate in the bidding process within two business days of issuance of the RFP.
• Any queries/clarifications must ONLY be sent to the email ID mentioned above, within four business days of issuance of the RFP. Any query/clarification received after the said date will not be entertained.
• We will provide the responses to all queries within six business days of the issuance of the RFP.
• Any bid received after the final submission date or for which the password is not received/ received by the day indicated above is subject to rejection.
• A committee will evaluate the proposals based on the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) methodology.

Timelines for the above process: 

8. Evaluation criteria

We typically follow the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) methodology, with not more than 20% weightage to cost. This helps us focus on the quality of proposals and outputs.

The final decision with respect to your submission will be conveyed through electronic mail. We discourage any follow-up in this regard.

9. Intellectual Property

As the sole initiator and sponsor of the project, CEEW will have full intellectual property and usage rights of all the deliverables, products and case studies produced, as well as of the associated analysis and datasheets. CEEW will be free to make these documents, and associated data generated under the project, public to enable government, academia and others to undertake further research.

10. Confidentiality

The service provider will be required to maintain confidentiality with regard to all information and data related to the agreement.

11. Payment terms

The proposed payment schedule for the project is as below: