light at the end of the tunnel???

text of letter sent to press

The 'National Programme of Franchisees' of the Rural Electrification Corporation, launched recently, is easily amongst the most sensible of steps taken by the government. This coupled with 'Decentralised Distributed Generation' scheme, where long distance low-voltage transmission and its attendant problems are avoided, can make for a sea change in the quality of life of the rural population in the not too distant future. When viewed in this holistic fashion, non-convetional energy sources can become viable, and where there may still be problems, the government could even consider offering various forms of incentives to cover up the gaps, atleast initially.

What is happening is essentially privatisation, though, with the P-word still being anathema to the Indian Socialistic mind, it is being given a more acceptable terminology. Fair enough!

And, with the rural demand thus addressed, the next sensible step would be to hand-over the distribution in the cities to TATA's, Reliance and the like, who are already doing a fairly commendable job in the field in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Greater NOIDA, Kolkata, etc, where the population doesn't have to depend on gensets, inverters, converters, batteries, emergency lamps, candles, torches, etc, which, even by a conservative estimate, would be a Rs 1,000 crore industry segment in a city like Bangalore. Privatisation of distribution will automatically mean the killing of this segment of the industry. But, that is exactly the benefit of privatisation. Capital flows to the most efficient means of usage of resources. Can there be a more compelling reason, for privatisation, by whatever name it be called?

Rural Electrification

letter sent to the press on 10/05/06

While the Union Energy Minister, Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde's promise of electrifying all the villages in the country by the year 2009 (vide the report in your columns on the 9th instant), is most laudable, if he is going to be doing it by drawing thousands of kilometers of T & D lines across the length and breadth of the country, as has been the practice so far, all he is going to achieve is to land the rest of the country into deeper trouble. These rural T & D lines invariably come as a package with factors like unbridled theft, low power factor and consequent drop in efficiency, unmetered and consequently unchecked consumption, leading to huge losses for the service provider. And, by clubbing them together with city loads, as has been the practice followed by companies like BESCOM, to provide for cross-subsidies in the name of Socialism, it is helping neither the rural consumer nor his urban counterpart. And, very clearly, there is no future along that route.

Mr Shinde would therefore do well to look at stand-alone alternate energy projects in the rural areas, preferably in the private / co-op sector, funded with low-interest loans by the various developmental agencies.

Tadadi project

Text of letter sent to the press

The proposal for the 4000 MW, coal based, super thermal power project at Tadadi (North Kanara) makes neither any economic sense, nor any sense viewed from the environmental angle.

The NTPC - Power Grid Corpn tie-up has already shown the almost perfect route to solving the supply side of the problem. Between them, they are in a position to generate (in pit-head super thermal power stations along the Eastern coal belt) and supply as much power as you want in any corner of the country at the cheapest possible rates. All they want is that you arrange to pay them on time. But, because the KPTCL is not in a position to do that, and the government refuses to release it from its clutches to enable it to organise itself to do that, in pursuance of its cross-subsidy policy in the name of Socialism, the government is having to come up with all these hare-brained schemes.

The simple solution is to hand over power distribution in the cities to companies like TATA's and Reliance, and in the rural areas to co-operatives like the one we have in Hukeri (Belgaum district), and they will in quick time organise themselves to pay on time, and everything will fall in place thereafter. There will no longer arise the need to ship / cart coal from far off places, burn it in the verdant Karnataka coastal region, and muck up the environment in the process.

But, apparently, the government believes in promoting mega projects, and not in solving problems.