In the glorious cool and scented
atmosphere of the parliament, 31st of July experienced the inaugural
oath taking ceremony of the new home minister of the Republic of India.
Expressing his reverence towards the Gandhi Nehru family, and remembering Mr
Rajeev Gandhi for giving the nation a dalit Home minister in the form of Bhuta
Singh and now his wife to give this opportunity again to a dalit, Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde proceeded to
declare his acceptance of the new job and promised to serve in all benefits of
the home. A close save that was, as while his office was shifted from the Power
to the portfolio of Home Affairs, he had left some 650 million surging with
unanswered questions and a new successor to be blamed and pointed at. All that Mr Veerappa Moily, the infant in-charge
of Power ministry stated was that the events had been an expected result of the
non-harmonised system of dealings and unsynced relations between the States and
the Centre.
The reason for
all the up-surge had been the nationwide power cut causing blackout in almost
entire of the Northern half of the nation for two consecutive days. Going with
the reports, we come to this conclusion that on the night of 29th
July the Bina-Gwalior 400kV power
supply line tripped due to overload. This line, connected into the
Agra-Bareilly transmission section, even caused it to collapse. A similar
cascaded shutdown followed causing tripping up of power stations for the entire
province of Uttar Pradesh, creating a shortfall of around 32GW of power. The
ramifications led to a complete blackout state, and this continued to spread in
the neighbouring state as well, leaving around 300 million in darkness.
Mr Sushil when
questioned retaliated by arguing that there had been a continuous mass drainage
of power by states, defeating far behind the bounds and limits set by the
centre. The reason he made to support was blaming the lagging monsoon which had
caused a delay in rains and motivated the farmers to increase the use of
irrigation pumps for their obvious reasons. Previously collapsed in 2001 this
fall was considered the worst in our entire nation history. The Confederation
of Indian Industries(CII) claimed that the collapse had costed them tens of
millions of dollars. While living in a nation considered as one of the most
potent upcoming leader in the global world, we already lead in certain numbers
such as sheltering some 300-400 million who lie in the “non-grid” zone (zero
electricity). And now, to add to the list we lift the record of positioning
some 650 million in no light and absolute darkness for two consecutive days.
Reports say that this two day performance missed by inches from making a
Hat-Trick as on 1st of August as a similar overload was observed but
the power line was cut beforehand. The Agra-Gwalior
line running on 800MW was brought down to 600MW and the state of Uttar Pradesh
was provided only 7GW of power against its demand of some 9.5GW.
Now the issue
that concerns me is that why is there so much of power requirement? There can
be two explanations to this. Either
we remain to be unaware denizens and fail to realize that we are wasting too
much of power that causes the shortage, which seems a more unlikely
explanation. Or perhaps we are really short of power and we need to generate
more for everyone. Besides, both might also be partially correct that is to
say, while we need to generate more, we also have to realize its importance and
conserve more. As far the “conserve” factor is considered, a significant change
is easily visible in form of a new perspective towards electricity amongst us.
We’ve started to be more courteous towards using fans lights ACs, and even
water, for the very reasons that we are facing shortages, may that be in form
of electricity or water supply. But as far the generative aspect is considered
a lot seems yet has to be achieved.
We already have
an installed capacity of 205,000 MW
of power generation that is more than 35% of what it used to be some 5 years
from now. However that still remains to be around a fifth of the total power
generation of China as it were. Moreover around a third of our population is
still not connected to the main power grid. There have been efforts made to
install and elaborate the current capacity, but they have been regularly
thwarted by issues such as power project clearances, Land acquisitions, and the
most efficient- Environment concerns.
One such latest
issue which came to a lot of limelight was the uproar at the Kudankulam Atomic Power Plant. The dream
for this Atomic Power Plant Project was seen by our former Prime Minister Mr
Rajeev Gandhi barely an year before his demise in 1988. The project was signed
between the two partners’ viz. the Republic of India and the USSR. But after
the disintegration of USSR, the project fell into a limbo. Now abstaining
myself from entering into the labyrinths of history, let me jump straight to
the point when this project, which finally got its inception and was about to
complete, was received with a lot of criticism by the local denizens. The
developments had been based on the latest Fukushima nuclear disaster, caused by
an earthquake, and the indigenous people feared that a similar catastrophe
could claim lives of some 10 million who lived within the 30 km vicinity of the
reactor.
Despite repeated
efforts of the Jayalalitha AIADMK Government and their appeals to the centre to
step in and resolve the issue, people refused to negotiate. This soon became a
political scenario where people claimed that government at centre does not care
local sentiments, while government claimed that the people and the protesting
NGOs are getting foreign fund and support. What does this signify? We are so
very deeply dug into our own immaturities of pointing and questioning each
other that we fail regularly to contemplate enough on a problem.
These indigenous
people will continue to ask their government for their own power plant and look
at the recently build 600MW Moserbear’s Solar
Power Plant in Narendra Modi’s Gujarati Patan as a competitor, at the same
time refuse to get a historical deal flagging up in front of their eyes. A
clear expression of our mismanagement, and unwillingness to be the first for
accepting a change. Why is the government not capable of settling down the
people’s protest with a proper explanation and start off the 1000MW plant? Or
why are the people so worried and irritated when this would work in their own
benefit?
If a mere visit
by a former President fail to resolve the issue, then find another way, make
your policies, your laws, re-establish locals, do whatever is best for
everyone. But certainly calming the issue by mere displays of inspections and
the logos of “work in progress” will never deliver us with a solution. These
power cuts will remain dominant, repeat and continue to haunt the image of INDIA
as it were in the Global Scenario when it fights hard against its economic slowdown.
References:
Wikipedia: Kudankulam Atomic Power Plant
Times of India, The Hindu, NDTV: General figures
Yognik Baghel
No comments:
Post a Comment
do comment folks.