When someone in politics tries to analyse something related to Technical, the best they can do is to compile some facts. Analysing those facts and interpreting them in the ‘correct’ and ‘unbiased’ manner is not their cup of tea.
One of the old members of the Congress’ ‘Youth Brigade’ Jyotiraditya Scindia, who inherited the business of politics from his late father was ‘minister of state for power’ during the scam tainted UPA regime. It appears he eyes the same ministry, whenever UPA comes to power again.
Of course, in a democracy power rotates between parties and so his wish may be fulfilled, but it is his earnestness in tracking the progress of his erstwhile ministry and trying to blacken the work done by others is not unsuitable of a person, who wish to occupy the high chair again.
Out of power for two years, it appears Scindia is impatient to return to the seat of power.
To further his case of one-upmanship over the current minister of state for power, Piyush Goel, Scindia tried to attempt to prove Piyush Goel was wrong. Picking on one statement from the interview Goel gave few months back, he tried to paint the current government in black.
Consider the question and answer from the interview of Piyush Goel – verbatim:
Quote
Piyush Goel: There is a problem of abundance right now. The power plants are running on low PLF which will cause problems for the investors in these power plants…
Will anyone go to a country to invest if they foresee a power shortage? Under ‘Make in India’, too, we can tell the world that India is now a power surplus country, and they should come and invest.
You will never have a power shortage? It is not a problem for investors at all. In two years, we added 45 GW – a 22 per cent increase in thermal installed capacity.
If GDP grows at 7 per cent, power needs to grow by 5-6 per cent. In the last two years, demand in electricity grew by 14 per cent; the remaining delta would lead to a fall in PLF only.
This also means that I have spare capacity to ramp up as the demand increases.
Unquote
Any normal person reading this would understand that Piyush Goel was emphasising on the need to have ‘surplus’ power so that investors are attracted. Considering the low PLF at which many thermal power plants were and are running now, he made a categorical statement that India is now a power surplus country – as a matter of fact.
Well, the interview in question was given in the month of June, when most parts of even Delhi, ruled by the most ‘efficient’ chief minister was facing severe power crunch, so it is understood all other states, except the prime locations of metros were also affected.
Giving a political colour to the technical interview, Jyotiraditya Scindia chose to question about millions houses that are not on the radar and millions of houses that are connected to ‘power’ less wires.
I believe Jyotiraditya Scindia might have been helped by Mani Sankar Aiyyar in writing the column, for normally it is not expected such utter nonsense uttered by him, for I still consider him to be one of the best the Congress has to offer.
By the time UPA was forced to relinquish power in favour of NDA, coal production from CIL was at its lowest and imports became regular practice – of coal with high GCV at higher cost. In the same interview Piyush Goel stated that forex savings to the tune of Rs 24,000 Cr were realised in the last year, due to ramping up of coal production by CIL and another Rs. 40,000 Cr worth imports may become redundant.
And the savings from coal auction were in line with the estimate of losses by CAG, which the UPA government rubbished. One more thing Jyotiraditya Scindia tried to overlook was the fact that the windfall savings from coal block auctions were not going into the kitty of the centre, but to states and ensure a continuous inflow of cash over the lifetime of these mines.
Well, Jyotiraditya Scindia seems to have a soft corner over the people who are still denied access to electricity even after seven decades of independence. But, only he can explain how he is expecting Piyush Goel to provide electricity to all people of India, within two or three years into power.
If Scindia has the authority to criticise Piyush Goel, then logic demands he should be first criticising Jawaharlal Nehru for imposing his ideas of socialism that forced India to remain relatively in the dark for many decades.
He should be criticising Indira Gandhi, who went a step further and nationalised even Banks! Though Rajiv Gandhi, was credited to introducing Electronics to India, without economic reforms enforced on India by Narasimha Rao, whom Congress never owns, nothing would ever have happened, even in the field of communications.
By being a minister for power, Jyotiraditya Scindia might have learnt how much electricity is lost during transmission.
If he feels discoms in Piyush Goel regime have become self-appointed regulators of electricity market, he should be answering what he had done when in power.
If ever Jyotiraditya Scindia is going to prove he is correct, all he needs to do was to publish a white paper. As on the date of coal blocks licenses were cancelled by the court, he should provide the unit cost of production and the cost of power governments used to pay to the generating companies, for all units that generate power for public consumption.
Can he do it?
The table would show how much profits were being made by these generating companies and who were the owners and which political party they are connected to. Else, he better sit tight and keep his mouth shut.
He should also make a list of political parties that promised cheap power or free power to the electorate before elections. For many decades, his grand old party infested the minds of Indians so much so that if they are offered something free, they demand two.
And, what is the best way of preventing losses? Provide them no electricity. This was what Congress government did for many decades. Whether it is electricity or roads infrastructure or railways, if Scindia feels Congress performed better, he should provide annual statistics of augmented capacities.
Perhaps, Jyotiraditya Scindia may not be knowing, for it needs a better vision to see the future, the future would be localised small grids within villages, making heavy transmission lines redundant. But then, Scindia had to criticise the current government irrespective of the realised savings.
Finally Jyotiraditya Scindia may note that @Rs 4Cr per megawatt and @Rs 6.5Cr for thermal and solar power plants respectively, a savings of Rs 3,00,000 Cr equals to the investment needed to establish either thermal power plants of 75,000MW capacity or solar power plants of 46,000MW capacity.
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