Power, lost in politics

For power-starved Maharashtra, the news of an additional 2,100 MW of electricity by December from the Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Limited...

For power-starved Maharashtra, the news of an additional 2,100 MW of electricity by December from the Ratnagiri Gas and Power Private Limited RGPPL project at Guhagar in Ratnagiri is good news. The state, which was once power surplus, is today facing a massive power deficit of over 5,000 MW 8212; almost a third of the national deficit of 16,000 MW.

Maharashtra, which notched up investments of around Rs 43,000 crore in the past few months, was forced to shut down power supply to industries to tide over the shortfall. Ironically, while the RGPPL plant, which is the proverbial saviour for the state, is one of the factors responsible for the mess that the power sector is in today.

RGPPL was once the Dabhol Power Company DPC operated by the multinational Enron. When Enron announced plans to set up the plant in the 1990s, protests from environmentalists, locals and opposition parties erupted. The Shiv Sena-BJP, which came to power in 1995, decided to stand by the project it had once famously announced it would 8220;sink into the Arabian Sea.8221;

In 1999, the DPC became operational, bleeding the Maharashtra State Electricity Board MSEB with huge bills, only to be shut and liquidated in 2001. The project was revived by RGPPL.

However, the Enron controversy and over-dependency on the project led to a situation where no capacity addition in the power sector was carried out for almost a decade.

Though Maharashtra has an installed power generation capacity of 13,452 MW, it is not utilised well. So while Maharashtra suffers massive blackouts, politicking has begun in right measure with the ruling Congress-NCP and Opposition Shiv Sena and BJP sparring it out. Public anger too is evident with people damaging the property belonging to Congress MLA from Umred in Vidharbha-Rajendra Mulak to protest the power cuts.

Officials rue that the state ended up subsiding power supply for political reasons rather than pump in the same money in power generation. Moreover, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray has already made his opposition clear to the 2000 MW Girye-Saundale ultra mega thermal power project at Sindhudurg. This is allegedly because the project is supported by the Sena8217;s bete noir and state Revenue Minister Narayan Rane.

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Maharashtra also could not draw excess power from the eastern grid after the Power Grid Corporation Ltd PGCL in 2006 connected the western grid to the northern grid.

The state government is shopping for power 8212; expected to cost over Rs 1,300 crore to tide over the crunch in summer, and claims an additional 11000 MW will be generated by 2011-12. The state has also signed MoUs with eight private parties to produce 12,000 MW of power. But only four have shown interest. Meanwhile, Tata and Reliance Energy are involved in a scrap over land, which both are claiming for their respective power projects in Raigarh district.