B.S. Meel

As man has a right to life, similarly electricity should be within the reach of every family irrespective of whatever may be the income of the family, because the path of the development roots through the electricity.

If you go to any village and ask, “What do you want here?” “What would change life in this village more than anything else.” And response you often receive is “we need energy to light our homes and classrooms, to pump water, to make cooking, to power our small workshops, to listen to radios, to learn on computers and gain access to internet, to refrigerate medicines and vaccines in our hospitals and of course for grinding wheat and rice.” One of the principal ways that electricity can help transform rural economies is by powering irrigation.

To emphasize the importance of electricity in supporting economic growth,” the bottom line is that we cannot attack poverty, improve food security, and build economic opportunities in poor countries without more electricity. The Indian economy, especially agriculture depends heavily on electricity.

A secure supply of electricity at an affordable price is not only a social benefit, it is a vital element in economic development. The supply of electricity has been accepted as a basic minimum service. At present 69% household in India are deprived of electricity. It will be difficult to liberate them from backwardness and bring in the main stream of the nation, if electricity is beyond their reach.

After 1991 Indian power sector had undergone a transformation starting with structural adjustment programme conditionalities of the world Bank, which required that the power sector should be opened to competition to increase efficiency. The GOI has been responding to these dictates with a succession of measures in last ten years culminating ultimately in introducing “The Electricity Bill – 2001” in parliament, which will set in motion the de-electrification and de-industrialization of the country.
People in rural India having no alternative due to there being no opportunity for employment in rapidly slowing economy, will be forced to depend on agriculture sector which can be viable and operative only if supply of electricity is provided to them at an affordable rates. This is only possible if we develop Indian power sector on least cost route, optimizing use of national resources. The skyrocketing cost of electricity under the new power policy render agriculture sector produce (through electricity) unrenumerative and unviable, and as a sequel the agricultural consumers will default the payment of electricity user charges. This will lead to increase in theft on one end and pauperization of rural masses.

The per capita consumption of Electricity is the barometer of the prosperity of the society. The per capita consumption per day in India is one unit, in China 3 unit and in U.S.A 40 units. The Section 165 of Electricity Bill – 2001 states that “Any amount payable by a person under the Act, if not paid, may be recovered as if it were an arrear of land revenue”. The Bill assures foreign investors that most pernicious instrument of colonial subjugation would be used for the recolonisation of India.

The existing laws enabled extensive rural electrification. They have even allowed various models of rural electrical co-operatives and the supply regulated and controlled by institutions like the Panchayats. Rural area have been served by planning the daily load cycle, especially during the irrigation season (it is not surprising that in a agricultural state like Haryana, some days there would be the world’s highest ever night peak load at 2 a.m.) What is pernicious in the present Bill is that for the first time since Independence there will be a statutory divide between the two Indias – the urban and the rural India. “The do it yourself” and “manage yourself the loss making part of the system” is the prescription for rural India. And the world class, ultra efficient privatized power system is the promise for urban India”” It is a fact that separating rural and urban power systems would enforce costlier power to the farmers and endangers national food security so carefully built up over decades.

Under the transfer scheme the employees should deem to have been transferred without any recourse to the Industrial disputes Act 1947 or any other law for the time being in force.Under the transfer scheme provisions casted under restructuring as in the case of 7 reformed state SEBs for creating trust to be funded with the money to the extent required for discharging the terminal benefits of the employees such as graduity and pension liabilities. But the state governments will find it extremely difficult to fund in these trust to their deteriorating fiscal health in spite of their assurance to that extent. At present 13 state governments are even starved of funds to discharge salary and pension liabilities to their employees. The centre has mooted proposals to the states to consider four major issues where central government will be stressing that it will be impossible to effect any improvement in the fiscal health of states unless D.A. freeze, restriction in pay rise as part of a package of measures for fiscal corrections. The mounting salary and pension liabilities is one of the main reasons for states going in for market borrowing which push them further into debt, presently being 23.1% of the GDP.

Under such circumstances in Rajasthan, in case of unbundles RSEB, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission has ordered a cess of 3.57 paisa on every unit of electricity sold to generate the resource to be funded in trust for discharging the terminal benefits of the employees. This order further pushing up the power costs to be born by the consumers.

Copyright © 2002 - 2004 Electricity Employees Federation of India. All Rights Reserved.
Email: info@eefi.org · Feedback · Terms and Conditions ·