Ask any bureaucrat or politician in the North-east, or those in the ministries of water resources and power in Delhi, and they will tell you the North-east is a ``storehouse'' of power. But when you actually come to the region, you find the situation is quite the opposite.Industrial units either see regular shutdowns or are permanently closed due to shortage of power. Costly equipment has been damaged in hospitals courtesy frequent power trips. In houses, there is no power supply for hours together. Even municipality water pumps run dry from time to time as there is no power for them to function.Last week, for instance, Guwahati, the gateway to the North-east, experienced power cuts so many times that even Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) officials lost count.The power situation in the region has been dismal since the beginning, and though several volumes of reports have been compiled by governments here as well as at the Centre on the matter, very little has been actually happening on theground.In Assam, for instance, as many as three of the ASEB's four thermal power stations have not been functioning properly for decades. The 133.5-MW Namrup thermal power station, set up in the early '60s, is currently producing hardly 40 MW, while the Bongaigaon thermal power station, having an installed capacity of 240 MW, is producing only 30 MW.While the hydroelectric power potential alone of the North-east is 43,000 MW, only 455 MW is currently being drawn through four different projects located in Assam, Meghalaya and Manipur. The total capacity of projects under construction is another 680 MW, while detailed project reports have been prepared for 7,100 MW more. This still leaves almost 24,000 MW of power untapped.Harnessing of the power potential of the mighty Brahmaputra and its numerous tributaries would not only drastically change the power scenario for the better but also mitigate the sufferings of the region, which experiences perennial floods.The Brahmaputra Board - setup by the Centre after years of representations, agitations and protests in 1982 - had proposed building a 269-m-high dam on Dehang, the river's main tributary, at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore at 1984 prices. This was expected to produce 20,000 MW of power at 60 per cent load factor. A simultaneous proposal for a 240-m-high dam on the Subansiri at Rs 6,800 crore was also made.But these projects had to undergo changes following vehement protests from Arunachal Pradesh, which feared massive submergence of villages on its side. What also worried many was the fact that the North-east is one of the most active seismic zones in the continent.The Brahmaputra Board subsequently came out with a proposal for three consecutive dams on the Dehang at a cost of Rs 23,444 crore (1997) apart from another dam on the Subansiri at a projected cost of Rs 12,500 crore.However, these projects too continue to remain on paper. Every time a prime minister or a water resource minister visits the North-east, theiranswer is the same: there is severe fund crisis, preventing going ahead with the projects in the current Plan period.The hydroelectric promise apart, the region, and more particularly Assam, also has the potential to set up more thermal projects. Three plants have already been set up with a total installed capacity of 404.90 MW. But the plant load factor is tragically poor, not even 40 per cent.In fact, the plants owned by the ASEB are in poor shape. The long years of mismanagement, including over-staffing and poor recovery of arrears, are to blame for this.Given the situation, the Assam government is contemplating leasing out some of its power projects to private companies, and one such firm which is said to have come forward is Ogden Energy Asia-Pacific Limited. The renowned US company has proposed to take on lease a plant, rehabilitate, operate and transport power, and also increase the plant load factor.According to Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the Assam government is givingtop priority to renovation, modernisation, revitalisation and rehabilitation of the existing power stations, and a sum of Rs 87.93 crore has reportedly been already sanctioned as loan by the Power Finance Corporation for this. He also told the state Assembly last week that negotiations with Ogden were on to vitalise the 240-MW Bongaigaon Thermal Power Station in the first phase.Till the Centre finds the funds required to construct dams on the Brahmaputra's tributaries and the SEBs find out ways to actually make their existing plants produce, the North-east will continue to grope in the dark.
