POWER POLITICS

The Big Fight between the State and the Centre over the issue of power supply turns bloodier with each passing day. And surely, the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government?s decision to bring Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi?s constituency) under regular load shedding ? a day after the Congress chief gave a humiliating defeat to all other political parties in the just concluded Lok Sabha bye-election ? will only add fuel to the fire being generated by the Centre-State collision.

The Big Fight between the State and the Centre over the issue of power supply turns bloodier with each passing day. And surely, the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government’s decision to bring Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi’s constituency) under regular load shedding — a day after the Congress chief gave a humiliating defeat to all other political parties in the just concluded Lok Sabha bye-election — will only add fuel to the fire being generated by the Centre-State collision.

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A poll-conscious State Government is projecting things in such a way as if the Centre were responsible for the people’s power woes. Aware of the political damage that the State Government’s remarks may cause to it, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government holds UP responsible for its power shortage. It is alleged that the Centre is not allotting UP its full share in the power houses situated in the northern region and discriminating against UP vis-à-vis other States in making power available to it from the Centre’s discretionary quota. “UP is getting 12 per cent less power every day from the Central pool this year, compared to the previous year, due to unusual and impractical power allocation to States by the Centre,” alleged UPPCL chairman and principal secretary (Energy) Ashok Kumar Khurana.

The Centre, he claimed, was discriminating agai-nst UP in providing it power from its discretionary quota, an allegation which Mulayam Singh Yadav too has levelled many times during the last few days.  “We fail to understand what criteria they adopt for making power available to States from the discretionary quota, Khurana said. Citing a few examples to bear out is point, he pointed out whereas smaller states with low demand like Delhi and Haryana get 300 MW and 236 MW of electricity every day from the Centre’s discretionary quota, UP with a large size, biggest population, and widest demand-supply gap gets only 191 MW.” He said 15 per cent of the total power generated by the Central sector’s regional power houses goes to the discretionary quota after the States share is allocated to them. The Centre is supposed to help power-deficient States by making more power available to them from its discretionary quota when a State faces a situation of emergency.

Khurana admitted to and justified UP overdrawing power from the power grid.

“Had the Centre provided our full quota of power, there would have been no need for us to overdraw,” he explained. No wonder then, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission on May 9 imposed a Rs 1 lakh token penalty on the UPPCL for endangering the grid’s safety by overdrawing even when the grid frequency was below the threshold limit of 49 hertz. But there are no regrets.

“We will pay the penalty,” the Chief Minister was quoted as saying.
The Centre, on the other hand, cogently rebuts all ‘discrimination’, which it describes as misleading. “The charges that Centre is making any discrimination against UP in matter of power supply from the central pool do hold water and away from facts,” said Union Power Secretary RV Shahi over the telephone from Delhi. Contrary to Khurana’s claims, he revealed that UP’s share both normal and from the discretionary quota put together was the highest in the country. “UP’s total share in the Centre’s power houses situated in the northern region is 27 per cent, which is higher than any other State not only in the northern region but also in the country, he said adding, “for example, Delhi’s share is only 20 pc, Haryana and Punjab 11 pc each, Rajasthan 13 pc, Himachal Pradesh 6 pc and J&K 8 pc.”

Shahi attributed the State’s power shortage to its failure to set up any new powerhouses during the last 10 years, modernise existing ones and contain the high transmission and distribution losses. “If UP brings its powerhouses’ plant load factor at par with the national average of 74 pc, its own availability will go up by 1100-1200 MW,” he suggested.   

One does not know what the final outcome of the ongoing Centre-State tussle will be, but it is the State’s people who find themselves at the receiving end.

The Chief Minister and his officials may say anything, but what is interesting is that there are not many takers for their arguments in power department itself.

“Centre always helps us, though at times it has its own constraints as it has to look after the interest of all the States,” said a senior official who has long been associated with the UPPCL. It is alleged that UP was spreading propaganda against the Centre just to divert from the real issue of acute power crisis, which people have been facing for long.

To the State Government, which is facing wide-spread public protests everywhere, often violent ones, due to prolonged power cuts,  anti-Centre tirades have come as a handy tool to make people believe that the Central Government was not giving electricity to UP despite all efforts and hence, their power woes. 

To be fair to Mulayam Singh Yadav, he may have some point in saying that the Centre was not adopting a logical approach in making power available to UP vis-à-vis small states like Delhi and Haryana from its (Cente’s) discretionary quota.

But what is certain is that the Centre is not responsible for the power-shortage in UP. Even if the Centre starts giving 100-200 MW power more from its discretionary quota, will that put an end to the power crisis? “Certainly not,” said a very senior UPPCL official on conditions of anonymity. “In a State where the peak-hour demand-supply gap is as wide as 2500 MW and widening every year, availability of 100-200 MW power more will be like a drop in the ocean,” he said, adding, “More significantly, electricity from the Centre does come as charity. The UPPCL has to pay a heavy price for it.” 

The only solution, he said as also suggested Shahi, lay in becoming self-reliant in the matter of electricity. And that can be achieved by putting its own power houses, modernise existing ones, and tackling power theft and line losses as well as wastage with an iron hand, he suggested. “We cannot divert the issue for long. People are intelligent enough to see through it,” he said.