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| Energy Management. | | |
(Vikram Gour)
The Power Sector in the state continues to suffer from inefficient supply system, power cuts, breakdowns, over-load trippings without notice, non-standard power supply and mostly un-metered connections that has resulted in unprecedented Power Transmission & Distribution (T&D)
losses to the tune of Rs 2200/- crores (as admitted by the Minister on the floor of the Assembly). This has adversely affected the entire progress of the state as a whole in all sectors.
Surprisingly, the powers that be, blindly refuse to learn from their follies and failures of the past and refuse to put the power working system on the right track in line with the suggestions, advice and directions of the agencies (GOI) funding them and keep misleading both public and the public’s representatives by showing them ‘green pastures’ miles ahead.
We boast of harnessing hydro Power potential of 20,000-MW available in the state with the help of funding from the GOI every year. Although, the funds have been coming every year from GOI under different schemes both for improving and augmenting the system as well as for adding on to our existing power generation capacity yet our T&D loss figure has been increasing every year and our import bill has shot up to around Rs 2,000/ crores. If you add on to this figure other charges of establishment, operation & maintenance, depreciation and interest etc and the free power as Royalty from NHPC Power Stations another Rs 923/- crores ( 521/- + 402/- can be added to this figure of 2,000/-crores totaling up to around 3,000/croes. Against this total expenditure the revenue recovered by sale of Electric Power was only around Rs. 722/-crores (442/- Jammu and 280/-Kashmir) in 2008-09. Working out on these figures the loss works out to around 76%. The expenditure incurred does not include expenditure on improvement/augmentation, extension, further electrification of new areas etc funded by the state or GOI which runs into hundred of crores every year.
Imagine the fate of a system, institution, business house, a commercial house or even a government owned agency which instead of becoming a revenue source for the government eats way half of the govt budget in losses! How long such a system can sustain itself on borrowed finances. The collapse of such a system is written on the wall only its managers have closed their eyes and are living in fool’s paradise risking the fate of millions of people and the coming generations who are and will be living on it.
All this is because the entire Energy Sector is being grossly mismanaged at all levels including political, beaurocratic as well as technical levels. Basically the working of government agency runs on Political and Beaurocratic directions. The technical man-power manning the agency follows the orders, therefore unless there is political will to run the system on purely technical/commercial considerations nothing can change. Therefore, the mismanagement springs from the political level itself.
Mere telling the people and their representatives that government has 1,000- micro Hydel Projects in hand and under the PMRP we have URI-II-240MW, Nimmo-Buzgo-45MW, Chutak-44MW, Barsar-1020MW, and Krishanganga-330MW project in hand and in addition there are several other small power projects of more than 10-MW which have been awarded to various companies would not solve the problem of Power Shortages the people are facing today. We may have hundreds of crores available under APDRP but unless the Politicians decide to free the system from their clutches and allow it to run purely on Techno-Commercial lines, decide to rid it of the ills it is suffering from and plug the leaking holes that are causing loss of thousands of crores to the tax-payer, all efforts to exhort thousands of crores from the GOI in the name of improving the Powered Supply system in the state of J&K shall fail and the honest user whether domestic, commercial, industrial, agricultural or any other sector will keep on suffering and all those who cheat, steal, misuse electric power and those who are adept and expert in swindling away the available funds for projects at the behest of their masters will ‘make hay while the sun shines’.
It is for this reason that CM should take the Power Sector very seriously and devote time on setting his ‘Energy House’ (which is his portfolio) in order and himself undergo a short ‘Energy Management’ course so that no one can take him for a ride as is being done at present. It is for our Chief Minister (being a young and supposed to be dynamic individual) the diehard traditional political hold on the system to blackmail the voters with cheap tactics of bestowing Short Term favors of cheap/free power at the cost of long term development and prosperity of the people. He should make his government function on most modern and scientific lines under advice from experts in the field with less political and parochial considerations which have so far brought the state to this pass. (contd)
The remedy to the problems in Power Sector lies less in more and more power generation than efficiently managing and utilizing economically what is already available with us. If we are able to reduce our T&D losses from 76% to around 20% our existing power supply available to us will be more than enough to meet our power requirement and in the process the state exchequer will have gain of around Rs 1,400/-crores an enormous amount that can be utilized for development in other sectors. Whatever additional power we generate by taking up new projects will become additional source of income for the state. But if the state keeps on adding to existing available power by taking up and commissioning new power projects costing thousands of crores without improving the existing flawed Energy Management System we surely shall add on to our mind boggling Power Losses.
That is, precisely, why the National Planning Commission has termed the Power sector as ‘Functioning Anarchy’. In the course of a recent internal review meeting to ascertain progress in the power sector, the Planning Commission was bewildered to find out that the addition of every 1-MW of power was accompanied by an annual loss of Rs 1-crore. The GOI has an ambitious target of generating 78,000-MW of power by 2012; accordingly the country would have to incur an annual loss of Rs 78,000/-crores, besides incurring a capital investment of Rs 9, 00,000/- lacs, the sources in the Planning Commission said.
The above seems to be true in case of our state. The total power requirement of the State is around 2,000 MW and we are loosing around Rs 2,000/- crores annually on Power Sector. And if the state goes on adding to its power generation capacity with the help of funding from the GOI under various schemes as is being dished out by our ministers we will have neither the finances nor the man-power to run these power projects. The state has already handed over Bagliar Hydroelectric Power House to NHPC for running and maintenance at an annual cost of Rs 150/-crores.
Thousands of crores of rupees under Accelerated Power Development Reforms Program (APDRP), Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Program ( PMRP), Border Area Development Program (BADP), Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojna (RGGVY) as also Rs 1300/- crores annually for the last three years were received by the state for various project works. Where the entire money has been spent is not visible on ground nor is there any improvement in the power supply system. What should a common man think of the disappearance of this enormous amount of money without showing results!
It is really high time for the Chief Minister to seriously get into business of handling his ministry himself and stem the rot by carrying out long standing reforms in Power Sector as recommended by the Central Electricity Authority CEA, unbundle the Power Sector into Autonomous Bodies/ Corporations headed by experts in the field and not by politicians or beaurocrats and run them on purely commercial lines, encourage privatization as much as possible, restore completely the authority of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) as per the SERC Act of 2004 and keep a close watch on the working of the entire power sector if he wants his state to be NO. 1 in the country at least on the Power map. The state has tremendous potential of Hydro-Electric power to make J&K the richest state in the country.
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