I see the darkness spreading

Well, you don’t have to be an Oracle to foresee Maharashtra’s powerless future. Yesterday’s Sakal carried the state government’s full page ‘message’ intended for the forsaken population of Maharashtra reeling under daily power cuts. It’s more of an attempt of throwing their hands up rather than saying we are sorry for the mess that we, the 6 year old administration along with a couple of them before us, have put you people into. Given the context, pictures of the CM, Home Minister and the Power/Energy Minister at the top of the page look like those of the culprits of the situation rather than celebrated leaders. Of course, there are the regular promises of long term solutions for the current power crisis, but when it comes to immediate solutions (which there are hardly any), they include such vague measures as “taking strong action against illegal users” (when was the last time that happened?), “efficient usage of current generation capacity” (by an organization that shamelessly reports 30% transmission losses) and the most brazen – public awareness about electricity usage (a way of saying, if you want electricity, don’t use it – well, maybe only a little). Also, one of the greatest election campaign farce of recent times - “free electricity to farmers” is about to come to an oh-so-expected end.

During all this, Mumbai city gets uninterrupted power. (In the given circumstances, shutting down a bunch of hoardings in the evenings feels like observing a minute’s silence, and then getting on with your work). Interestingly, the reason they cite for Mumbai not facing a single power cut is that Mumbai is fed by two private power generators – Tata and Reliance. Infact, these two together have surplus power. Is this an innuendo toward the final solution of power reforms? Vainly debated over the years, entry of private companies into the power sector is essential and inevitable. The telecommunication boom that we are witnessing today should be an example worth looking up to. The MSEB, helped by years of political interference has managed to turn into an unaccountable, sluggish monolithic behemoth that now finds itself in an abyss that it simply cannot get out of on its own. Gradually opening up the power sector and relieving the MSEB of some of its ‘load’ would have been planning wisdom. Now, it’s more of a compulsion. Ironically, the only quickly available power source is Enron, which we fought so hard to set up and then fought some more to shut it down. Which is why Gaurav smells a fish. The people of this erstwhile prosperous state deserve better than this. They deserve accountability and efficiency, even if it comes at a price, but until that happens there’s hardly any light at the end of this dark tunnel.