Sadly, over the last two decades it had come to be assumed that it was the Central government that was re

sponsible for power generation and that the States had little to do in the matter.

Mr. Shinde, who was speaking at the last meeting on the power situation, said that efforts were on to restore the Dabhol power plant, rechristened Ratnagiri Power Project, despite several hindrances.

The government had paid Rs. 10,000 crores for the 2,150-megawatt (mw) plant and entered into a partnership with GAIL and NTPC. But when an effort was made to restart the three units, it was found that the machinery had turned into junk.

Finally, one plant with a capacity of 630 mw had been started; the second, with a capacity of 1,300 mw, would start by March; and by October all three units would be operational.

Further, since sufficient space was available in the area, it was decided to have an additional plant with a 200-mw capacity “so that Bombay’s problem is solved”.

Mr. Shinde stated at the outset that he was the Governor of Andhra Pradesh when he was invited to join the Union Cabinet on December 29, 2006. At that time, more than half of the Tenth Five-Year Plan period had passed by. The Tenth Plan had envisaged a capacity addition of 42,000 mw, but only 21,000 mw was added.

When he and his team tried to find out what exactly had gone wrong, it was learnt that there was a shortage of fuel, of gas and of equipment, too. In fact, orders for the same had not been placed on time.

This was a sorry state of affairs, given that the Electricity Act of 2003 allowed “open access” to the power sector. Yet, despite the target of 42,000 mw only 21,000 mw was added.

Following discussions with the Planning Commission, the target for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan was fixed at 78,757 mw.

This was a huge challenge and he had accepted it. The first thing his Ministry had done, even before the Tenth Plan ended, was to place orders for (equipment for) 80,000 mw.

Despite the shortage of coal and gas, in addition to the need for “nonpolluting” power, he was hopeful of meeting the target of 78,000 mw.

Sources such as solar and hydro power were also being looked at and would be tapped if necessary.

Apart from the Central Electricity Authority and the government of India’s own machinery, he had also appointed a committee of experts for plant-wise monitoring. The experts visited each project site every fortnight. This had never been attempted before.

Another committee, comprising former Secretaries in the Ministry of Power and representatives of industry bodies such as CII and FICCI, had been appointed as advisers to the Power Minister.

This panel would correct him if he went wrong at any stage.

Mr. Shinde went on to say that ever since the “open access” policy was formalised, huge investments had been made in the power sector. Over Rs. 100,000 crores had already come in and the figure was likely to swell to Rs. 600,000 crores by 2017.

Besides, the government had also announced nine ultra-mega power projects. Each one would have a capacity of 4,000 mw and cost Rs. 16,000 crores. There was a demand for more such projects all over the country.

The bidding process had been completed for four projects, two of which would be at pithead (close to the source, viz., coal) and two based on imported coal. The price per unit of electricity generated from these would be Rs. 1.19.

The setting up of two power exchanges was another unique achievement. This, too, had never been attempted before and had come about only in the last two to three years.

In order to promote hydropower, it was decided that for the duration of the Eleventh Plan there would be no competitive bidding. Manufacturers would be free to sign MOUs with States and start generating power.

Forty per cent of the power generated would be available to the manufacturers for free sale on a mercantile basis, whether in India or abroad (mainly Nepal and Bhutan where transmission lines were available). Twelve per cent of the power would go to the State and 1% utilised for local area development.

The Minister said there was huge capacity available along the Himalayan ranges, from Arunachal Pradesh to Kashmir. It was estimated that the yield could be 180,000 mw, but at present only 32,000 mw was being generated.

Another major problem faced by the power sector was the shortage of trained staff. To this end, the government had adopted 14 technical institutes (ITIs) and was in the process of tying up another 27.

“I have said that in each government of India undertaking we must have our own technical school at the project... I recently inaugurated three to four regional schools which are at the level of major engineering colleges so that trained staff will be easily available.

“There are strict instructions that whenever the foundation of a power project is laid, we must also lay the foundation for a school on the same day. One project takes five to six years to complete and the locals (who complain that they don’t get employment) will be trained in two to three years and will be ready to be employed in that unit.

“I have started this with public sector undertakings but I will make it compulsory for private, independent developers, too, because they complain that they have to hire people from Korea, China and so on (to work in their plants).”

About manufacturing units for the power sector, Mr. Shinde said that so far there was only one such company, viz., BHEL. It was said to have a “huge” capacity for making generators and turbines. But how “huge” was its capacity? In truth, it only manufactured equipment to handle the generation of 5,000 mw.

When this was juxtaposed against the target of generating 78,000 mw, it seemed puny. But thanks to the intervention of the Prime Minister, the Department of Heavy Industry first raised BHEL’s capacity to 10,000 mw and then to 15,000 mw. But even this was not enough.

Therefore, several new companies were being allowed into the field and joint ventures were being signed by L&T, Alstom, Bharat Forge, Toshiba, JSW and others. Four ventures were about to commence and would concentrate on “plant balance” (to ensure that power-generating units did not suffer for lack of equipment such as ash decks, cooling plants and so on).

Referring to the promise of giving power to all, Mr. Shinde said that the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Scheme started in 2005 had promised to give electricity to all by 2020.

Out of India’s 1,15,000 villages, the scheme had already covered 67,000, giving connections to 83,00,000 families below the poverty line. This was a free scheme with 90% subsidy from the government of India and 10% loan from the REC. A sum of Rs. 5,000 crores had been spent so far and the Ministry still had Rs. 28,000 crores with it.

Efforts were also on to prevent theft of power, loss during transmission and commercial losses. Work on transmission lines was also going on simultaneously and some firms from Bombay were executing projects even in distant places like Sikkim.

Things were moving quite briskly and against a capacity of 1,343 mw at Independence, India had achieved a capacity of 153,000 mw. But this was not sufficient.

Mr. Shinde then referred to the oft-repeated question: Why was China able to achieve capacity addition at a brisk rate of 20,000 mw per year and not India?

To this, his answer was that the Communist system of China did better in comparison with India’s democratic political system. In this country, many projects were stopped because of objections.

For example, a group of people objected to a hydro project in Gangotri on which Rs. 400 crores had already been spent. He had ordered the work to be stopped and was trying to convince them to allow it to continue, promising to stop other projects in the area.

In the case of hydro projects, all that was done was that the flow of water was diverted slightly, power was generated from a gushing manoeuvre and the water continued its flow. No one was taking the water away. “But we can’t go against Indian religious thinking. Therefore, we are facing difficulties.”

One panacea for power ills had been the finding of gas in the seabed off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. Recent news reports spoke of yet another find in the same basin. However, Mr. Shinde said, it was important for power plants to run to capacity.

He reiterated that the power sector was in the concurrent list and that “the government of India just has to manage”. Yet, the Power Minister had called a meeting of State Power Ministers twice in the course of the year in order to give them clear-cut ideas about the steps that they could take and also “threatening them for some reason or other”.

Finally, he said, he had held a meeting about the power situation in Maharashtra at which some decisions were taken. “The position will improve in a year or two… maximum two years, till then you have suffer it (sic).”

When he agreed to answer some questions, Mudit Jain said that “open access” was a good policy but some States were not allowing inter-State access. He wanted Mr. Shinde to “use your office to browbeat them”.

Mr. Shinde agreed and said that he had already threatened Karnataka with action if necessary.

But Mudit persisted, pointing out that even Tamil Nadu was not allowing “open access”. He also wanted to know whether the Power Minister would split State Electricity Boards (SEBs) for greater efficiency. They received power at low rates from NTPC but charged very heavy rates when they passed it on.

Mr. Shinde replied that it was the task of the State Regulatory Commissions to work out the prices.

Jagdish Malkani wondered what sources would be tapped for the next 50,000 mw of power. And what were his thoughts on nuclear energy?

The Minister said that nuclear energy was another area that was being explored. India had already signed a civilian nuclear agreement with the USA (in 2008) and nuclear plants would soon be set up. Fuel arrangements were also being made, but everything took time.

Pradeep Chinai pointed out that most SEBs were losing money because of pilferage, (mis)management and so on. Was anything being done about them? Further, he asked whether the Dabhol power plant would ever start functioning.

Mr. Shinde said attempts were on to restructure SEBs, to separate their distribution, transmission and other phases so that the problem areas could be identified. He was all for restructuring (he did not like the word “unbundling”).

The restructuring in Maharashtra had led to Bhiwandi being given over to franchisees. Now the rates had come down, thefts were prevented and full electricity was supplied.

 As for the Ratnagiri Power Project (earlier called Dabhol), Mr. Shinde’s response has been quoted at the beginning of this report.

When Shyyamniwas Somani spoke about solar power being an expensive proposition, the Minister said the government was collaborating with the US, Germany and other countries for research co-operation in this area.

Besides, attempts were also being made to assess the potential and cost ramifications of wind power, tidal power and so on.

“India is now very progressive on the power sector. The same thing happened in the USA in 1945 when Roosevelt was President. From 1945 to 1950, they did not improve much. But from 1950 they improved so much that today they have 10 lakh megawatts.

“And India is facing the same situation today, whether you go to rural areas or in the towns… But I am confident that with this Prime Minister and the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, we will be able to give better thrust to the power sector,” Mr. Shinde added.

While Shailesh Haribhakti introduced the guest speaker, the vote of thanks was proposed by Nanik Rupani.