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FIFTH
COLUMN
Abuse
of Power
Activists
would do better if they targeted electricity boards, not private power
plants
By
Tavleen
Singh
A
curious thought has crossed my mind recurringly since the protests
against Enron started with renewed vigour a few weeks ago. Could it be
that India deserves to be poor? Think of it for a moment, would you? Here
we have a power plant that brought in the single largest foreign investment
that we have so far had in a single project and all we have seen against
it are protests. Politicians, social activists, journalists, swadeshi
foot soldiers and just about every other species of opinionated Indian
have combined to seize every chance to try and close the Dabhol power
plant down. When the political parties which led the original attack (BJP,
Shiv Sena) became the very ones to allow the project to be completed once
they came to power in Maharashtra, the activists, leftists and sundry
socialists were momentarily silenced. But now with Maharashtra's chief
minister openly admitting that his Government cannot afford to buy Dabhol
power, they are back in action. Told you so, told you so, they yelp from
street corners and newspaper columns, told you that Maharashtra did not
need more power. Told you Dabhol power would be too expensive.
 In
their enthusiasm to slay the foreign devil, they choose to overlook the
facts. Maharashtra's villages face between four and six hours of load-shedding
every day, its towns between two and three. Mumbai is the only city in
the state (and India) that does not have power cuts and since our activists
mostly reside here, the truth escapes them. It would not if the MSEB decided
to inflict power cuts on Mumbai but it will not do this because then the
attack would be directed at the MSEB's fine, high-sire offices instead
of Enron. Much better to use the foreign devil as scapegoat, so the Maharashtra
Government keeps quiet about its load-shedding. In the months of August,
September and October, this was 16 per cent or 1920 MW. Dabhol produces
740 mw currently and will produce 2184 mw when it is fully operational
by the end of 2001.
Maharashtra
needs all that power and more but since the MSEB is bankrupt it chooses
to resort to load-shedding instead. Now, here comes the really interesting
part of the story. The state electricity board is bankrupt for the usual
reasons: supplying free power to farmers-a subsidy it cannot afford, mismanagement,
distribution losses and corruption. But, instead of trying to improve
its performance, it chooses to spread the lie that it is bankrupt because
of being forced to buy expensive Dabhol power. The Dabhol Power Company
points out to anyone who wants to listen that its power only becomes expensive
if it is forced to operate its plant at nearly half its capacity. It also
points out that it will be no more expensive than other power plants if
it is allowed to become fully operational. It may never be allowed to
do this though because of the heightening campaign against it. Thousands
of crore rupees of taxpayers' money will be wasted if this happens but
who cares.
Our eager
activists, mostly of socialist bent, believe the state is faultless and
that more statism is what we need. So there are no campaigns against wastrel
public-sector spending, only against foreign investment. We do not, incidentally,
get much foreign investment: around $3 billion annually compared to China's
over $30 billion, but our activists continue to rage against foreign money.
Power is
vital for all development and the Government is incapable of providing
it. It is estimated that we have met only 55 per cent of our target to
generate 57,000 mw between 1997 and 2000. It is the poor who will suffer
because the rich these days generate their own. But do you think our activists
care?
No, because
the truth is that most of them are not poor. These days their scruffy
khadi garments usually conceal mobile telephones-that cannot be charged
without electricity-and their humble offices usually conceal expensive
computers. These are things that the poor would also like to have but
will never unless their self-appointed spokesmen understand that they
need to direct their campaign against state electricity boards and not
private power plants.
Unfortunately
for the poor they now have a powerful, new champion in Congress President
Sonia Gandhi, who announced last week that her party would support economic
reforms only if they helped poor people. So she opposes the de-nationalisation
of banks. How many poor people does she know who manage to get loans from
these banks? She also opposes the privatisation of public-sector companies
without noticing that the thousands of crore rupees these companies have
swallowed could have been better spent on schools and hospitals for the
poor. How many poor people does she know who have jobs in these companies?
See what
I mean without us deserving to be a poor country?
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METRO TODAY
Forget
endology, writes INDIA TODAY Senior Editor S. Prasannarajan. Celebrate
2001, celebrate the future in 