How Bengal packaged power reforms

What makes this more relevant now is that this happened in a state which is arguably the strongest bastion of organized labour in the country. And the central issue was the same as in Uttar Pradesh: the dire need to restructure the huge, inefficient state electricity board.

The story begins in the 8217;80s when the entire statewas in the dark: 10-12 hr power cuts daily, serious disruptions in water pumping stations, hospital operating theatres paralysed, even trains stalled on tracks. What was desperately needed was more power but the state had no money.

So in 1985, it set up a new company called the Power Development Corporation Limited. And promptly took away the Kolaghat power station 6215;210 MW from WBSEB and handed it over to PDCL. All WBSEB employees were given an option to join PDCL, their terms and conditions unchanged but only 1,200 of the estimated 40,000 staff switched over.

Another key step was to appoint a technocrat as the Power Minister, not just a party flunkey. The Government turned to Shankar Sen, a respected professor of electrical engineering at the Bengal Engineering College. Sen tapped into the best of his former students at different WBSEB units and brought them to PDCL.

The results were dramatic: work instantly began on three units which had been planned under WBSEB but never commissioned. The PowerFinance Corporation chipped in with a loan of Rs 232 crore. 8220;Ours was a dedicated work force,8221; says PDCL Engineers Association chief R N Mandal. 8220;We had to forgo holidays, off days, work for unlimited hours until we commissioned all six units. Our entire outlook changed, from a huge impersonal group in the WBSEB, we has suddenly became a small family.8221; It isn8217;t a surprise that the Plant Load Factor at Kolaghat is over 70 per cent, the best in the state.

Just as in UP, there were rumblings in the WBSEB too at that time but the Marxist government leaned on its traditional labour allies. The power crisis was severely affecting rural areas, the party8217;s support base was being steadily eroded in the cities, the CPIM told the unions that they had to play along.

So the first unit was commissioned eight weeks before the scheduled date. The Japanese-aided Rs 2,200-cr Bakreshwar thermal project 5215;210 MWits first unit was commissioned recentlyhas also been put under PDCL8217;s charge.

Even WBSEB chairman G DGautama admits this: old plants like those at Bandel and Santaldihwhich are now with the WBSEBwill be handed over to the PDCL, he says.

This restructuring of WBSEB continues. On the lines of PDCL, the Rural Energy Development Corporation REDC was set up in 1999 to take over rural electrification. This time, the message has gone down: the number of job applications from WBSEB is more than the number of vacancies at REDC.The Government has also shrewdly appointed as its present Power Minister a former key CITU leader Mrinal Banerjee who is now singing the reforms tune. Banerjee told The Indian Express: 8220;We have two more steps in the offing: to set up a hydel corporation and zonal networks for power transmission and distribution. We are certainly not averse to granting more autonomy to these networks.8221;

This tune is being echoed by the workers as well. Says general secretary of the CITU-affiliated WBSEB union Prasanta Nandy Choudhury: 8220;There can be no two opinions about the necessity ofrestructuring the boards. They have become unmanageable by their sheer size. It8217;s a must.8221; With such a consensus, even privatisation isn8217;t far away, say several Power department officials including Badal Sengupta, former WBSEB chairman.

But as in all stories, there is the other side. The same Shankar Sen, who played a key role in power reforms in the state had to quit last year over his run-in with the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation which has been in private hands since 1910 and was taken over by the RPG group in 1989. Sen raised the issue of the CESC defaulting to the tune of Rs 600 crore and lost his job.

Next: The CESC power struggle