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Journalism of Courage
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.
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.
