Power crisis: no quick relief in sight

Maharashtra's neighbour Gujarat has snowballed the process to revive the Dabhol Power Plant seeking higher price for the gas, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 5, 2007, 19:58:41 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Reeling under tremendous shortage of power, Maharashtra should not expect quick relief. Its neighbour Gujarat has snowballed the process to revive the Dabhol Power Plant seeking higher price for the gas forcing the Central government to push the deadline for completing the gas pipeline from Gujarat to Maharashtra.

The 2184 MW capacity power plant in a remote fishing village of Western Maharashtra can be an answer to the state’s power woes. In fact, the Centre has constituted an empowered Group of Ministers to supervise revival of the plant and remove hindrances in the process. A major hurdle --- high cost of power generated --- that lead to closure of the plant five years ago has been removed with the Centre proposing that the power would be available at 95 paisa per unit. For that, the gas has to come from Gujarat.

But, Gujarat does not seem to be inclined. The state Chief Minister Narendra Modi made his regret obvious to Planning Commission earlier this week when he said, “we notice with regret that an attempt is being made to subsidize revival of the Dabhol Power Project of Maharashtra at the cost of Gujarat”.

Modi blamed the gas supply from Gujarat to Dabhol as a cause for prices of gas rising by over 100 per cent for industries and power plants in Gujarat. According to him, the solution is a small cess of gas throughout the country would be a better revival for the project.

His, this stand, has led to delay in laying gas pipeline through Gujarat. “We will have to revise the timelines for finalisation of the gas pipeline route neat Surat,” Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi informed the eGOM in later part of March, while informing that the issue has been taken up with Gujarat CM Modi.

The entire pipeline is complete barring a 15-kilometre stretch in Gujarat where local authorities have sought for diversion. The pipeline was to be competed by end of March, but, in wake of resistance by Gujarat government, the deadline has been extended to May 20, this year.

The eGOM attended by Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh was also informed that the operation of second block of the power plant by April has been delayed due to financial constraints. Also, the Power Purchase Agreement ahs not been signed pending which work towards completion could not be undertaken.

Dabhol is one of the many issues on which Modi is angry with the Centre. He has termed the Centre’s denial of a campus of Mumbai IIT to Gujarat as unfortunate and decision of the I&B ministry to allow Mallika Sarabhai’s series on Gujarat as vindictive act towards the Gujarat government. But, then, Modi knows that Dabhol can hit the Congress most in Maharashtra as the state of facing huge power crises.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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