Economy watch

One senior officer of the Ministry of Environment and Forests remorsefully accepted that generation of electricity was imposing huge environmental costs on the country. Carbon emissions from thermal plants were adding to global warming. Storage of radioactive waste from nuclear plants was creating a long term hazard. Submergence of forests and breaking of rivers for hydro projects was killing the civilizational ethos of the country. But, the well-meaning officer said, we had to bear these costs in order to provide electricity to the dark households. "Do you know," he asked, "that villages are provided with barely few hours of electric supply in a day in Bihar?" The Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Scheme has set the objective of providing electricity to the 408 lac unelectrified households. Of these 56 lac households had been provided electric connections till February 2009. Generation of electricity has to be increased to meet this basic need of the remaining households. This resolve of the government is wholly welcome. But we must also examine how much electricity is required for this purpose? Might it be that darkness of the households is the smokescreen behind which ever increasing supply is being made to the upper sections of the society? The Government proposes to supply a lifeline consumption of 30 units per month to the presently unelectrified 408 lac households. The requirement of electricity for meeting this objective is 122 crore units per month. The generation of electricity in the country is about 6,000 crore units per month. Diversion of merely two per cent of the present generation is sufficient to meet this requirement. Look at it another way. The increase in generation of electricity is about 300 crore units per month. It would be sufficient if one-third of the increase in a single month is diverted for rural electrification. This done, rural electrification will make no future claim on increases in generation. The amount of electricity required for rural electrification is truly very small. Darkness in the villages is not due to paucity of electricity.