Editorial: Policy Deficit in Energy Sector

The technical details of what caused the back-to-back power grid failures on Monday and Tuesday which plunged more than half of India into a load-shedding stall ranging from 8 to 12 hours, have not been released yet. A committee has been formed to investigate the cause and recommend corrective measures. By the time this committee submits its report after having consumed all possible extensions, the national media will probably have moved on to other sensations. Irrespective of what the three-member enquiry committee finds, the basic reason why the power grid failed is really quite simple – a staggering mismatch between demand and supply. We are a country with a peak load deficit of 15,000 MW! Data released by the Central Electricity Authority also reveals that the overall energy deficit has been increasing in the country as demand continues to grow at a faster clip than increase in supply. Between 2007-08 and 2009-10, for example, the energy requirement increased from 693.1 Billion Units to 774.3 BU while the energy availability increased from 624.7 BU to 689.0 BU. As this illustrates, the energy deficit gulf increased from 68.3 BU to 85.3 BU in two years. Now, it is expected of the Union Ministry for Power to have noticed this imbalance and consistently evolved policy interventions to address the situation. It has obviously not done so, as the Monday and Tuesday incidents, which have earned India the “black-out nation” epithet, amply bear out. What is worrying that the priorities, when it comes to energy planning, remain unhealthily skewed. To begin with, an obviously non-performing Power Minister in Sushil Kumar Shinde is gifted the Home Affairs portfolio and before one could hope for things turning better in the Power Ministry, Veerappa Moily, parked as Corporate Affairs Minister [after failing to delivery as Law Minister], is bumped up as Power Minister on the day when India suffered the worst black-out in history. What is worse, he is holding additional charge!
What is also worrying is that discussions on the energy crisis [and there is one] is veering dangerously towards promoting a regime which will leave India poorer – environmentally and economically. Experts have routinely underlined that the energy deficit is primarily due to Transmission & Distribution losses, poor transmission and distribution infrastructure [which should be obvious now], unaccountability in metering and billing, cross subsidies etc. But these are not issues featuring in the ongoing debates which are aggressively lobbying for quicker environmental, land and forest clearances not only for power projects but also coal mines. One needs to bear in mind that most of India’s electricity generated by thermal plants. The country needs more energy, that is definite, but the challenge is to develop cleaner sources of energy and not more of the already environment-suffocating options that the country has been investing in. Every additional MW of power should also be supplemented with improvements in T&D and it is time that the energy issue invited a multidisciplinary approach. The demand for power is escalating at present due to the failed monsoon [spiking domestic consumption for cooling and agricultural demand as farmers need to pump up more water for irrigation] and supply has been compromised due to a combination of constricted coal supplies and lowered hydel generation. This should not have caught the concerned authorities by surprise as it did this week and a plan-B should have been put in motion at least a month in advance. Energy, because it is required at home, in the fields, at commercial establishments and for industry, should ideally be advised by an interdisciplinary body which factors in all aspects, studies more signs than just the status of coal supplies or demand for MWs and then recommends course adjustments in time. But energy planning seems to have stopped with opening of the power generation sector for private players and appears set for another hiccup which will compromise public and forest health and displace people and wildlife with even more alacrity but deliver little by way of improving the demand-supply scenario. It is time that a nation as big and varied as India invested more in clean renewable sources of energy. Nothing worthwhile is happening on this front, its progress hamstrung by opinion makers who dream big, centralised and dirty when it comes to power generation. This approach has to be replaced with a revamping of the infrastructure and clearer commitment to energy efficiency and decentralised renewable energy.