The Big Blackout

Last evening, I attended the screening of a short film, introduced to me as below:

The Big Blackout
Debunking the Myths of Power Privatisation
A Video documentary on the impacts of neo-liberal power reforms worldwide and the search for democratic and sustainable energy policies
TNI/Living Films
About the Director.
Satya Sivaraman is a writer, journalist and videomaker originally fromIndia, based for the past thirteen years in Thailand and coveringpolitical, cultural and developmental issues in South and Southeast Asia. He is currently in New Delhi and in the process of shifting backto India.Satya Sivaraman has worked in the Indian print and television media ('The World This Week' program produced by NDTV- covering South-East Asia) as well as for international news organizations (Inter Press Service, AsiaTimes) over the past twenty years.

The screening was supposed to start at 6 pm. I reached the venue well on time to see a handful of people gathered there. On enquiry, I was told that they would wait for a while for the participants in the NBA rally (which was concluding around that time) to turn up. The screening eventually started at around 6 pm to an audience of some 20 odd people, some of whom may have been from the NBA lot.

The film lasted about half an hour. It showed mostly rallies, supposedly against privatization, in countries like Bogota, Brazil, Thailand, etc, and supposedly one in Hyderabad, and dwelt mostly on the police brutalities leading thereof. As to what the rallyists in Hyderabad were seeking, was not quite clear.

Well, anywhere in the world, if the police is provoked beyond a certain limit, they will react. Nothing new there.

Then, it went on to show what looked like a canal brimming with foam, and the narration went on to blame the electricity company, supposedly a private one, for it.

Well, there are whole issues of the ‘Down To Earth’ magazine (published by the Center for Science and Environment, New Delhi) concentrating almost entirely on the harm our own public sector, Coal India Ltd, is doing to the rivers in the Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand belt. In our very backyard, in Bangalore, the harm caused to the Bellandur lake due to the neglect by the BMP, a government agency, does not seem to have attracted the attention this director. May be the people who broadcast the invite to the screening, could do so.

Then, there were some interviews of complainants of faulty billings.

As if to say that this has happened because of privatization. And, before that, the billings were perfect. The general experience, wherever privatization has taken place, is that errors are far fewer, and, even when there are errors, they are very easily corrected.

All these were interspersed liberally with interviews with the now near-extinct breed of die-hard Socialists from various pockets of the world.

During the interaction session, I projected the experience of Bangalore, where the power supply is totally in the hands of government agencies, and the customer satisfaction level can be pegged at around 3 on a scale of 10, as compared to Mumbai, where it is the TATA’s and Reliance who are distributing power and the customer satisfaction level could be pegged at close to 9.5 (on the same scale of 10). As a result, there is a thriving genset, inverter, converter, battery, UPS, candle, match-stick industry in Bangalore, all in the private sector, while the same has a marginal presence, if at all, in Mumbai. So, the incompetencies of the government agencies involved, is promoting new opportunities for the private industry, and in the process, leading to less productive use of our scarce resources.

A lady in the audience went on to add Ahmedabad, and Surat to the list of cities in India (the others being Marxist-ruled Kolkata, the Greater NOIDA region, and now New Delhi) where power distribution is in the hands of the private sector, and the citizens are far better off for it. But, the Socialist in her, went on to say that that was on account of certain peculiarities prevalent there, which she failed to elaborate on.

I went on to state that, whatever the peculiarities, we have these excellent examples, and what is needed is to replicate these examples the country over.

Another lady seemed to have a problem with Tata’s and Reliance making enormous profits.

This, unmindful of the fact that they were doing it even as they were providing an efficient and cost-effective service, whereas the government-owned service providers in Karnataka, are doing a lousy job, and, on top of it all, incurring losses of the order of Rs 3000 crores per annum. The apologists will blame it all on the rural loads. So, dear Socialists, very clearly, that’s not the way to handle it. There is an excellent example in Karnataka itself in the form of the Hukeri Coop society doing a fine job of distributing power in the rural areas. Please leave the job to such organizations.

Another lady went on to blame TATA’s and Reliance for the faulty meterings in New Delhi, after they took over the distribution, and went to lament that A/C, which she termed as a necessity in the Delhi summer, has now become unaffordable for even the middle classes.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the consumers in Delhi had so far been ‘managing’ the government-owned DESU very well, and, with the private sector players taking over, the consumers are now having to pay the actual costs.

There was another gentleman who went on to state that ‘electricity’ is now a necessity, and therefore, should be treated as a ‘fundamental right’.

The question that arises simultaneously is whether A/C in Delhi should likewise be treated as a fundamental right, even as the poor in the villages are roasting in the summer heat because of the incompetencies of the government service providers.

The director then went on to an MNC bashing exercise. I had had enough by then, and I walked out.

I had not so far not heard of anyone other than some misguided the power sector employee unionists campaigning openly against privatization of power. So, it was essentially curiosity that drove me to attend the screening. Now, I am all the more convinced that privatization, and privatization alone, specifically of power distribution, that can cure the ills afflicting this all-important infrastructure sector.

As for Mr Satya, he should realise that if he is going to continue in this vein, he will have hardly any audience in future.