`So hang me, I think I did the right thing’

A grin, a frown. Part-serious and part-mocking, Ranga would then deal with it as he did with all such charges: “What would you do in my position? You have to chaabi these chaps a bit.” And after savouring the shock his blase attitude gave you, Ranga would get all earnest, explaining his side of the story in great detail.

In the NTPC case, he told journalists time and again, the problem was that NTPC had invited tenders for four gas-based power plants at Anta, Auraiya, Kawas and Gandhar twice and then cancelled it for some reason or the other. If they did it again — after giving one more extension for the tenders — they would lose all credibility. No one would bid for it and India would slip badly in its target for augmenting power supply. Convincing, right?

Never mind, even if you aren’t. For, as anyone even remotely connected with the power sector will tell you, Ranga was one of the more dynamic ministers the sector has seen for a long time. It was Ranga’s ability to call a spade a spade and to stick to his guns that, for instance, ensured that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took a firm stand on the UP powermen’s strike, and finally broke the unions’ back. It was Ranga’s shrewd mind that ensured that NTPC engineers were sent to man the critical power stations in UP — this ensured that power supply in UP actually improved during the strike and played a major part in public sympathy moving away from the unions.

And if, in five years from now, the people of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab are able to get cheap and reliable power from the 3,960-MW mega-power Hirma Power Project in Orissa, it will be thanks to the efforts by Ranga. He argued that the only way power could be made available cheaply was to give it a zero-tax status, right from the time the project was being set up. And to avoid the tedious negotiations with four or five state governments, the power is to be sold to the Power Trading Corporation, another novel concept thought of by Ranga. The project is currently being reviewed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) and is likely to be cleared next month.

Ranga’s biggest achievement, of course, apart from allowing the private sector to set up transmission networks, was to free the sector from the government — it is in transmission of power that the major theft takes place and India’s transmission network is also woefully inadequate, leading to a huge loss in power supply.

Ranga set up the CERC as an independent all-India regulator and, during his tenure, 11 states set up state-level regulators and began cleaning up the mess in the power sector.

When the CERC, for instance, came up with an order which would have reduced the public sector NTPC’s earnings by a whopping Rs 800 crore, Ranga took no sides, telling NTPC to handle it on its own. Says S.L. Rao, who heads the CERC: “We had no public or for that matter private squabbles. This was very important in order to build confidence of investors in the sector.”

Not that Ranga wasn’t a tough boss. Being informal was also a matter of style for him. As a senior official in a PSU under the power ministry pointed out: “He was a very informal minister. He would know everybody by first name, joke around, but if his wishes were not fulfilled, he would express himself loud and clear.”

“Even I,” adds Pradip Baijal, who was power secretary under Ranga till some months ago, “could never take him for granted — he was very focussed, and knew what he wanted.”

We journalists, of course, will remember Ranga for his warmth, his ability to speak a smattering of dialects, enough to make you feel comfortable. And CERC’s Rao’s story is proof that journalists alone didn’t feel this way. “The other day I switched to Kannada while speaking to somebody when I was standing next to him. And suddenly I saw this glint in his eye. I turned and said — `you couldn’t have understood that’. His answer was `30 per cent of the population in my constituency is Kannada-speaking — of course I speak and understand the language’.”

Ranga’s Power

* Author of the mega power policy to give incentives to huge power projects — Hirma in Orissa will be up in five years and will provide power to four states

* A new hydro policy to give greater thrust to this sector.

* Allowed private sector investment in the transmission sector which is the biggest bottleneck. Powergrid will soon invite private bids for its Tala project from Bhutan

* Set up an independent Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. Subsequently, 11 states set up state-level commissions.

* Power Trading Corporation set up to sell power across states

* Securitisation of dues of State Electricity Boards (SEBs) to release money of Central power utilities like NTPC and NHPC for investment

* Kick-started investments by both NHPC and NTPC