By Phrangsngi Pyrtuh
I was readying for Easter Sunday service when the electricity blanked out early morning. I assumed it was just a glitch and would be quickly restored considering it was an important day but then this was asking for too much. This was the situation in much of Shillong. Ultimately the church I went to had to switch the generator on to enable uninterrupted service. This event brought back flashes of the events that occurred in Garo Hills few weeks earlier when the district went without electricity for the most part triggering a social crisis with people taking to the streets. The Garo Hills blackout came at a time when exams were going on and it was unfortunate that the callousness of the Corporation should cost the students their exams. The episode is very much preventable had the Corporation been a little more prudent and checked the transmission lines and fixed any weaknesses knowing fully well that exams are pending and that a glitch in the transmission lines would have severe repercussions as they clearly did. It is the Corporation’s job to not only provide electricity but to also maintain the lines and towers for distribution.
Things were not so bleak as they now are since some years ago Meghalaya was a power abundant state. The small reservoir at Umiam and the other at Sonapani were enough to meet the demands of the small population. Failure to generate additional power generation/projects concomitant with the burgeoning demand, limited supply which is not sufficient to service the needs of the state. Following the global examples of electricity deregulation (electricity was once a highly regulated sector by the Government) India and Meghalaya state proceeded with deregulating and privatizing the all important utility sector. Deregulation is needed to allow competition to the sector from private players with the intention of making the sector more competitive (which once was monopolized by state run electricity board). Allowing competition in the sector was the reason why deregulation of electricity occurred with the intention of improving supply at low prices. By this logic privatization of MeSEB was supposed to have solved the electricity crisis in our state. The creation of Meghalaya state was viewed favorably since it has a head-start in many areas (such as education for instance) but somewhere the growth trajectory never picked up pace and the result is a debt-ridden state. Meghalaya could have jumpstarted its electricity sector to garner substantial revenues similar to Bhutan whose economy survives and thrives mostly by exporting electricity to neighboring India. This never happened and my speculation is that it won’t in the future.
We are so dependent on electricity for everything and it has become part of our survival needs. Man has upgraded from the three basic needs- shelter, food and clothing of the pre-modern world (though there are socio-economic issues in our country) to include modern necessities such as electricity, roads, water etc. They have become an important issue in political lexicon so much so that Mamata Banerjee made Bijli, Paani and Sarak her election call and rode her way to power dislodging the Left government from West Bengal. With the deteriorating infrastructure and situation in Meghalaya can we speculate that the Garo hills blackout or the bad quality of our roads or the increasing shortage of water in Shillong and other urban areas would affect our state politics in future. This seems unlikely.
But coming back to the subject, the electricity sector needs re-structuring with a strong regulatory body. In July 2012 India suffered its worst power outage when its power grid collapsed and rendered 700 million of its population powerless. Often regarded as the world’s worst power failure, it generated huge debate about deregulation and privatization of the power sector. The answer of course was to have more reforms and hence more privatization. Historically the electricity sector has features of natural monopoly which restricted the entry of the private sector since the sunk cost involved is beyond their capacity. Substantial costs involved in the sector has traditionally compelled the government to take the responsibility of servicing the market. With technological innovation some segments of the utility sector has been deregulated to allow for private participation. Demand is most volatile in this sector and peak and off-peak pricing is usually employed to charge customers.
Meghalaya is currently a power starved state and the creation of MeECL (from the erstwhile MeSEB) to generate, transmit and distribute power in the state is perceived to instill competitiveness to the market which would improve services (uninterrupted) at affordable prices throughout the length and breadth of the state. Hugely demand driven the state is yet to achieve its potential generating capacity which has put immense pressure on supply which does not match up to the increasing demand. In the current situation the MeECL has to augment the shortfall from power entities such as NEEPCO, NTPC and NHPC. Transmission and distribution of power is a critical segment which needs strict supervision especially since we buy power from outside the state. Yet many parts of the state do not have a running power line and households still used primitive means for lighting their houses. The situation hardly seems better from the old MeSEB days. The MeECL has clearly failed the people and this calls for urgent policy change to remedy the situation which is getting out of hand as the Garo Hills blackout manifested.
Services provided should match consumer satisfaction and privatization is seen as the most viable option for this to happen. However inflated bills and load shedding is something we are all accustomed to by now and have become our common woes with customer’s dissatisfaction increasing. The government does not seem to bother at all even after the Garo Hills blackout indicated serious social concern on this front. The Meghalaya State Electricity Regulatory Commission is as good as non-existent in light of these emerging issues. It has remained silent following the Garo Hills blackout which it should have taken up seriously.
There is speculation that power companies do not play fair they underestimate their generation capacity or withhold power supply ( hoarding) to take advantage of (artificial) shortages in the market. Such revelations have gathered political overtones with Arvind Kejriwal accusing the Delhi Government of being hand in glove with power distribution companies. Apart from inflated power bills the Delhi’s electricity scam involved fudging of data to report heavy losses (where in fact they have been making profit as pointed by the regulator) to secure subsidies from the government, hike in power tariffs (when they should have been lowered as indicated by the regulator) and the Delhi government agreeing to such hike by sidelining the regulator’s recommendation for lower power tariffs resulted in undue and unaccounted profits for these companies. Auditing of power companies have not occurred and we need this as a matter of probity and fairness.
Electricity is a utility that requires universal coverage at affordable prices. Customers would not know the intricacies involved in pricing and cost that govern such utility companies. However they do know that their bills are increasing which does not match with their usage coupled with poor service delivery. These are issues that both the government and MeECL should take notice of. Pronto.