But pulling up bureaucrats is easy. Try addressing theft and raising tariffs Two things could have happened post 31/7 in the power sector. The enormity of the crisis could have sunk in. And the power minister could have refrained from dishing out street-corner solutions. Going by Power Minister Veerappa Moilys statement about putting in jail senior bureaucrats under whose watch states violate grid discipline,neither of those hopes may be realised. Current statistics show that the losses of state electricity boards amount to over Rs 2 lakh crore. The combined fiscal deficit of all states is also estimated to be about the same in 2012-13,which means that any attempt to make someone pay for the losses will double the deficit of the states. There is another relevant statistic. Indian consumers pay less per unit of electricity consumed than most developing countries,including Indonesia. Worse,the expense on energy for both urban and rural consumers today as a percentage of their total expenditure is less than what it was five years ago. In other words,the growth of tariffs per head is way below the growth rate of incomes per head. Also,as electricity supply typically reaches the better-off sections of the population,the conclusion is that the state has become more incapable of realising justified tariff hikes from those who can afford to pay more. Higher deficit and unchanged tariffs mean the poorest pay to keep the lights on in the homes of the better off. Grid indiscipline is a reflection of the same mindset. While it is true that bureaucrats,including state regulators,have played along with their political masters in not raising tariffs,as this paper has reported,engineers of load despatch centres have been known to receive text messages from politicians if they switch off the lights in their favoured boroughs. Changing this reverse drain means cutting down on the loss of generated power from 27 per cent to 15.5 per cent Moily has promised this will be achieved by 2014. The target does not inspire confidence because despite running two national programmes to reach these levels through much of the last decade,the loss percentage in the sector is now higher than in the beginning of the 1990s. Addressing theft and raising tariffs are more of a challenge of governance. That is also tougher than pulling up bureaucrats.
