EDITORIAL
Osama
again
Of course, he has
never been out of the world's focus or hearing.
The world has been treated to tapes, transcripts
and now a telephonic conversation with alleged
mastermind of the terrorism in the world today
wherein he has not only gloated over acts that
would discredit any voice or volition but has
actually threatened more such barrages against
his target countries and peoples. Like all the
earlier transcripts this one too would be another
tech-job for the sound engineers to grapple with
and a further speculation for the strategists to
tear down to atoms with their reasoning. And,
none may be any wiser save those who know. And
they are certainly not telling. If Osama had been
alive, or had escaped alive the bombing of his
the mountain caves, some of the top rung aids of
his who have since been nabbed by the Americans
would have certainly known it. Abu Zabeyda and
Al-Saferi caught from their Pak hideouts would
have been aware of the Al-Qaida king being alive.
They would also
have been aware of his having died, in the event
of US the attack. And one can be certain the
American investigators have enough means at their
disposal to make them speak. But as it, nobody
appears to be aware of either thing. There is
confirmation neither of his having been alive nor
that of his having died. Meanwhile others have
openly, confidently spoken of Osama having been
alive and kicking and, as the Afghan Ambassador
to India spoke in one channel chat, 'moving
around in Pakistan'. In the latest telecast his
voice not only speaks but brings the terrorist
effort up-to-date with acknowledgments of the
latest of attacks in Bali. The culpability is
also much clear, as the terrorist applauds the
GRAND efforts of 'sons of the faith'. If the
terrorist can hide so effective for all this
time, there is reason to believe that he is well
protected wherever he is. As such there would not
be much reason in keeping the mystery up,
especially as his faithful-in-terrorism
colleagues all over the world would do much
better to know that he is alive. confirmation of
his being alive would there be a great advantage.
Or, would that
intensify the effort to pin point him and bring
the whole American machine to bear down on that
part of world irrespective of any treaties, trust
and friendships? Hence the careful secrecy with
patent 'hope' being kept assiduously alive? Like
the terrorist attacks he had been planned this
secret has also been dropped on the world in a
most astute manner. Even the most preceptive
analysts would not be able to tell whether he is
or is not alive-would not be able to put these
careful twos together, that is. But one question
that often comes to mind is that why do people,
other than the sworn followers, still find a
fascination for him. In one of the earlier tapes
he clearly admitted the WTC attacks. In the
latest one, he lauds the one in Bali. And still
there are men and women who can justify him, his
work, deeds and being. They may be much less a
number but that is a people all the same. It is
they who are sustaining the terrorists, their
agendas, their biases and their bigotries. It is
a horrible deviation in the world.
Recruitment
policy
Recruitment to the
Government service is one of the easiest sops
available to the party in power, including its
ministers and legislators. Over the last several
years this governmental prerogative had been
transformed into a fine artistry to reward the
supporters, to earn a quick buck and to throw
upon the general public as the greatest
achievement of the party in power. But the
general public is only too aware of whose those
rewards and achievements are. They, accordingly,
did not get enthused over the 'achievement' of
the previous Government about the hundred
thousand and odd recruitments it made. As if to
prove it the scandals of backdoor appointments
kept dogging the last assembly and the Government
its full term. It is a vast relief that the
Government has refused to bow down before that
institution of corruption. On the other hand
there is talk of institutionalizing recruitment
and to make it proof to the unholy influences
that inevitable come to bear on it. If done that
would a long way in fostering probity in public
life in this State.
It is easy to
imagine how much pressure it must have faced in
coming to this decision of transparency. But then
there are certain facets of this Government and
the people supporting it that have been
unconventional to say the least. The refusal to
sell their memberships to the highest bidder was
one wholesome fact that in a way 'forced' a
mandated Government to take over. Probably, it is
better suited to the task of cleaning the augean
stables of governance than those obscene
majorities that only ended in corrupting the
system and can lay down some fine traditions in
governance which can ensure that the Government
is not again perverted for personal use.
Institutionalizing the recruitments, as the Chief
Minister has promised, is one huge step towards
achieving objectivity in administration. Setting
clear rules and making the whole processes of
recruitments to the Government service
transparent would free the ruling party from the
blackest blemish it could acquire. It would also
be more helpful to the people than spreading the
favours around and apportioning the governmental
cake does. This State is in dire need of setting
some good institutions and conventions to end the
wily exploitation of the people and subversion of
the governance.
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Jammu
people proved wiser than....
Men, Matters
and Memories
By M L
Kotru
Will
someone please convince the Bharatiya
Janata Party that the Government led in
Jammu and Kashmir by Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed is the duly elected Government of
the State and that the BJP's blessings
for its survival are neither mandatory
nor required. The decent thing for the
BJP to do would have been to gracefully
accept the washout it faced units vaunted
backyard of Jammu, so much so that it
barely managed to retain even one seat in
what it had proudly called its
stronghold. In the end the people of
Jammu proved wiser than their so-called
well-wishers in the BJP and the
RSS-sponsored morcha which stood for
Jammu's separation from the rest of the
State, a prelude perhaps to forming a
greater Himachal Pradesh. It would
obviously have been too much to expect of
the BJP or the RSS to accept a verdict
which, it anything, showed the two to be
living in a uckooland of their own
imagination.
The decent
thing to do, as I said, would have been
to accept the verdict rendered by the
people of Jammu and Kashmir and hail the
outcome since it also represented
sea-change in the State's polity.
Fortyone percent of the people braved the
fury of the militants and assorted
separatist groups to elect a new set of
popular representatives, brushing aside
those who had ruled them in the past,
namely, the National Conference. BJP's
was of course, a total roul. National
Conference, even in defeat in fact
emerged as the single largest party in
the gesture although far short of a
majority. The BJP is barely visible in
the new house. And yet, as a party which
itself heads an amorphous alliance at the
Centre, the BJP's spokesmen have been
pooh-poohing the coalition in Jammu and
Kashmir led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
Its
leaders, men like Venkaiah Naidu and Arun
Jaitley, are busy identifying conflict
areas between the Mufti Government and
the Centre. Half truths are cited as
evidence that Mufti's agenda is not at
all in accord with the interests of the
country. Mufti's statement that he would
urge a cease-fire during the month of
Ramzan is distorted inasmuch as no
mention is made of Mufti's rider that a
cease-fire cannot be a one-way street and
that the militants too would have to
observe it. Mufti is said to be soft on
militants and wants to talk to them.
Mufti is in fact doing no more than
saying what the Prime Minister admitted
in his Independence Day speech; that
mistakes had been made in Kashmir. And
then didn't the Prime Minister himself
declare a cease-fire in Kashmir two years
ago and didn't he Sen. K.C. Pant as his
emissary to talk to separatists in
Kashmir? Hadn't the former Home Secretary
gone to Srinagar to hold talks with
representatives of the Hizbul Mujahideen?
Mufti is
accused by the BJP spokesmen of wanting
to talk to the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference. The truth is that Mufti has
argued that the Hurriyat lost the
opportunity by refusing to participate in
the elections. If the Hurriyat has to
talk to an anyone it is to New Delhi. The
other truth-the bitter truth perhaps for
the BJP and others of its ilk-is that the
Mufti's People's Democratic Party
contested the elections on a manifesto
responsive to the aspirations of the
people of the State. Unlike the BJP it
did not fight for trifurcation of the
State with Jammu, Ladakh and the Valley
going their separate ways. Mufti above
all fought for a consensus not just
within the State but also at the National
level. Mufti says Farooq Abdullah could
have tried for a consensus but did not,
adding he hopes to work for it.
The common
minimum programme worked out by him prior
to forming the coalition with the
Congress is the first step towards his
resolve to arrive at a consensus, one
that marries the aspirations of the
people of Jammu and Kashmir with those of
the nation as a whole. The crafting of
the common minimum programme has in fact
been one of the first major victories of
the PDP-led coalition, a tribute in fact
to the Mufti's commitment and ability to
persuade the Congress President Sonia
Gandhi to accept the unavoidability of
some of the salient features of the CMP.
Why should, he asks, his Government or
New Delhi be afraid of holding a dialogue
with the disillusioned and disgruntled
sections for the society. After all they
were only talking to their own people who
for one reason or the other had drifted
away from the mainstream. If they are
given a stake in the affairs of the State
why wouldn't they identify with the rest
of us.
Equally
surprising is the reaction to his
Government's decision to release
political workers, some of whom have been
in jails for more than a decade. If the
State has no case against them or has
failed to prosecute them why should they
be held behind bars endlessly? The PDP
asks. Yet, the BJP President Venkaiah
Naidu has chosen to caution the Mufti
against releasing long-term detenus on
the ground that it would encourage
separatism! Considering the goodwill the
release of some local detenues, some held
without trial for over ten years, has
already, generated among the people one
would imagine that the gains from such
releases far outweigh the possibility of
harm. So far as Venkaiahs and Jaitleys
accusations that 'unilateral' release of
long-term prisoners would hurt the
national interest since many of them
could be Pakistanis, the argument does
not stand scrutinity. For one thing the
number of Pakistanis among the long-term
detenus is very small and it's not as if
the PDP-led Government has ordered a
blanket release of all prisoners
irrespective of where they came from.
Another
point of criticism has it that the
Mufti's refusal to use POTA is
terrorist-friendly. It's true that the
Chief Minister has forsworn the use of
the dreaded law but he has not repealed
the Public Safety Act which really is as
potent as POTA to deal with offences
covered by the latter. A lawyer of
Jaitley's eminence should know that.
If what
you are reading sounds like an apologia
for Mufti or his Government it's not
intended to be that, Frankly I fail to
understand why one should be hearing
criticism of the new Government in Jammu
and Kashmir about the same time as the
people in the State are welcoming the
change. It speaks poorly of those who in
the past have expressed concern over the
way things were shaping up in Kashmir.
Many of these self-appointed critics of
the Mufti, it appears, do miss the
"endearing" waywardness of the
Farooq Abdullah and his squandermania.
Mufti obviously lacks the flamboyance of
Farooq; he also lack Farooq's histrionic
capabilities. I can't see a Mufti
allowing his passions or his emotions to
transform into tears a la Farooq to
impress the gullible. The Mufti
Government, given its wide acceptability
throughout the State, needs unconditional
support of the Central Government.
New Delhi
must revive its commitment to a dialogue
with all sections of public opinion in
the State. It must also offer the new
Government the tools-through a new
economic package to endeavour to rebuild
the State, to revive people's faith in
the State Government's ability to address
the problems faced by them. Mufti has
been in public life long enough to be
able to tell right from wrong; He is
conscious of the mistakes his
predecessors and he himself may have made
over the years and willing to avoid
repeating these.
I for one
was impressed by a thought he shared with
me last week in Jammu. It appears a large
number of Kashmiri Pandit migrants had
called on him and apparently he was moved
by their plight. A perfect situation for
him to promise them the moon, if not the
earth which they believe has shunned
them. Mufti had a different view of the
situation. He did not wish to ask for Rs.
2400 crores like a Farooq would for the
Pandits' rehabilitation. "You, know
I will ask New Delhi for Rs. 100 crores
or something like that. I would
rehabilitate people selectively. Like I
would first ask the Pandits who left
Mattan to return. Most of their
properties are in tact. It would be
easier to help them rebuild their lives,
with an initial grant to rebuild or
improve their houses, and then offer at
least one member from each family a job.
I would identify similar pockets first
and probably move to the larger problem
only after those rehabilitated felt
safe." Mufti doesn't want a
spectacular mass return of Kashmiri
Pandits. He would go one step at a time
and see how the going to, and mind you be
wants all of them back.
In
conclusion of Mufti may well be providing
the State an opportunity to live in peace
with itself. Critics would do well to
five him a reasonable opportunity rather
than muddy the waters with dark
forebodings of the kind KPS Gill, the
former Punjab police chief, specialises
in.
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Caution
is not criticism!..............
Yours Randomly,
By Dr R
L Bhat
Yat
agre vishmeu parinamey amritopmum
Tat
sukham satvikam proktam atma budhi
prasadjam
(That
which is poison-like in the beginning but
is like the ambrosia in the end, know
that comfort the true, satvic one- Gita
18:37)
It can be
nobody's case that the terrorism is not
constantly being stoked in the State of
Jammu and Kashmir from across the border.
As of today those tentacles have been
extended all over the nation, through
links and networks, which may not be hard
to surmise but would be almost impossible
to prove. Nor it can be maintained that
the State has eschewed its active
hostility against the nation either in
its own ulterior designs or the ultra
designs that gave birth to that State in
the first place. Even when the reasoning
was simple and motivations could be
clearly seen through, the devil had
scriptures aplenty to quote. Today, we
have enough reasons and reasoning to
prove, disprove, re-prove or even
reprobate anything we may need to. Even
as rational reasoning is our sole way
through the mazes of this world, it
remains a disturbing truth that the same
reason can be used to serve most
irrational ends, including the perfect
opposite. We for example do not know
whether paranormal phenomenon do actually
happen or not. There are enough reasons
and reasoning on either side to unsettle
an open mind.
We may
never know whether the soft touch would
really help terrorism or help eradicate
it. There is something to be said for the
line of thinking that there must be no
quarter for real or imaginary, actual or
perceived grievance among the people
especially in the valley if the terrorism
has to be fought out of this State. It is
true that the terrorists are capitalizing
on the flimsy grievances, petty injuries
and perceived mistrust to turn the people
to their sides or at least to secure an
acquicing indifference to their patently
marauding activities. Like the Al Qaida
terrorists quoting and misquoting history
to rationalize their terrorism, the
terror-mongers in the valley are pouncing
upon each available straw to keep their
outfits afloat. Whether it is searches,
seizures or the deaths in the
crossfirings with the terrorists the
terrorists and their sympathizers find
'reasons' to throw the blame for their
activities around even stick it to
others, public memory is proverbially
short. It helps. Or, else how could the
people forget that the ones who come to
them once and deceived them? How could
they fall in their trap?
But they
do, again and again. In reaction or rage
over the latest incumbent, they end up
choosing the very persons whom they had
thrown out of office at the previous
round for the same reasons they are
throwing out their latest rulers now. On
that forgetfulness of the public stands
the edifice of democracy. But it extends
to other nooks too. People forget that
the marauding and menacing that they are
scared of is all because of the
terrorists. They forget that, in Kashmir
for example, there was no single
misdemeanor on the part of the army for
the four decades prior to terrorism, that
not a single person had died in army
firing ever, that at the height of the
1986-riots when the minority community in
Anantnag stopped a full convoy on march,
and requested them to save them from the
mad mobs after them, the army refused
saying it had no orders and couldn't
interfere in civilian affairs. That
public of short memory may not sit back
and reflect that it was only after the
Pak sponsored terrorists hit the valley
and started a hell-fire there that the
paramilitary forces were requisitioned
and that it took the army three years
before it was called to fight the
terrorists who had grown bold at the
restraint of the security forces. That is
for the analysts and observers to write
of and remind of; for the Government and
administration, with perspective and
experience to base long-term policy upon.
There lies
the other side of the argument. Terrorism
feeds on two things. The disaffection to
some extent and and the element of terror
to a large one. Terror is forced with why
strategies, impinges on the minds, men
and women and finally becomes robust
being on its own. They settle on the
softest spots of the State, bear those
perches down till a foothold is found and
become a force all its own. Today we have
people in the valley pleading with their
Governments, at the State and the Center,
to somehow come to a settlement with the
terrorists themselves and relive them of
the ceaseless persecution. They ask the
two countries to sit down and settle
their 'dispute, whatever it is' so that
they could live in peace and carry on
their commerce of life peacefully without
the ruthless sword dangling on their
heads. The people are sick of it all and
want to be let off. That bespeaks of no
grievances, no plaints but the sole plea
to let them out of the firing lines unto
their peace and preoccupations. But that
is when the agendaists become more
aggressive and terrorists smell prey.
They punch even harder and make the
people's plaint for peace a purchase for
their plans. And of course, then the
politicians make a killing.
Fancy
roams free and foibles hit from air. The
persons who have known and seen all
happening, un-see things and unlearn
facts. Promises are made, that may range
from practical to fantastic and cures
pronounced that may not eve know of the
disease much less diagnose it. Other
planks may just not have been registered
on the public mind. Still others may
actually go to aggravate the distress,
even if it appears soothing in the
beginning. One may not say that all that
appears good in the beginning is in
reality bad, but all that which has a
poisonous potentiality is bad how so good
it may appear in the beginning. And then
one can unlearn the past only at the
peril of being condemned to repeat the
lessons. More people, many more people,
have been there and returned singed and
sobered. As somebody said 'there is
always a simple, direct and wrong way to
deal with all situations'. When the
situations are complex, the simple is
invariably too simplistic to help. And,
we certainly want to solve not to
distress the solutions. Don't we?
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MEN
AND MATTERS
Osama’s
secret passage into PoK?
By B L
Kak
Osama bin
Laden, universally known as
"merchant of terror", is in the
news once again. His voice on a
"new" audiotape, praising the
recent terror attacks, has, as
acknowledged by the US intelligence
community, given rise to concerns that he
is still alive.
The tape
was first broadcast, early this week, on
Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel. It has
caused deep concern in the US
administration. Doubts, if any in this
regard, were set at rest by the US
President himself when he publicly stated
that the tape had put the world "on
notice yet again that we’re at war
and that we need to take these messages
very seriously, and we will".
By the
time George W Bush said that he would
leave it to his Government’s experts
to speak about whether it was Osama bin
Laden’s voice or not, a message from
Afghanistan revealed the presence of the
Al-Qaeda supremo in Pakistan. The message
had two signficant revelations—one,
Afghan officials and Taliban in hiding
expressed no surprise when they heard
that an audiotape had surfaced purporting
to be the voice of Osama bin Laden, and,
two, the Saudi fugitive terrorist leader
is not only alive but travelling with
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the deposed Taliban
leader, also wanted by the United States.
A set of
Afghan officials, in fact, prompted the
US Government to re-structure its
"catch-him-alive" plan after
Washington was informed that Osama bin
Laden could be in Pakistan’s
North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) or in
one of Pakistan’s cities. Osama,
prime suspect in the September 11 attacks
on the US, went into hiding shortly
afterwards. The latest audiotape appears
to be the first hard evidence in nearly a
year that the Al-Qaeda supremo survived
the US airstrikes in Afghanistan.
On the
other hand, the UN Secretary General,
Kofi Annan, was reported to have thrown
up a few questions vis-a-vis Osama’s
whereabouts and his connections with
certain elements in Pakistan. This
followed a written message from a
Pakistani occupied Kashmir (PoK) leader
to Kofi Annan on how and when Osama bin
Laden was secretly conducted into NWFP
and then into Darrel of Balwartistan in
PoK.
The PoK
leader has been identified as Abdul Hamid
Khan. His none-too-old communication to
the UN Secretary General contains a
sensational revelation: Scores of
Al-Qaeda and Taliban activists are in
Balwaristan, Gilgit and Baltistan. These
three sectors are located across the Line
of Control (LoC) in Kargil region of
Ladakh.
Hamid
Khan’s communication has also
revealed that Al-Qaeda and Taliban
activists "are being sheltered by
Wahabi fanatics with the help of the ISI
and Pakistani military".
Yet
another revelation made by Hamid Khan,
who heads the Balwaristan National Front:
Osama bin Laden was brought by the ISI
agents to the Korrum Agency and then
shifted to a hideout at Darrel in
Balwaristan. Khan’s missive to Kofi
Annan was accompanied by a list of 30
Al-Qaeda activists, presently in
Balwaristan.
Khan’s
missive further stated that another group
of Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects along
with several women and children were
shifted to Gilgit and then to Darrel near
Chilas on the left bank of the Indus.
These and
other developments are also ominous for
India. It has to be admitted that
trans-national groups and non-state
actors are becoming dangerous than the
socalled ‘rogue states’. One
will have to endorse the argument of
India’s well-known intelligenceand
security specialist, MK Narayanan, that
it will be a serious mistake to view
contemporary terrorism as a mere lineal
descendent of the ‘low intensity
conflicts we have seen previously in our
country’.
This, he
insists,is hardly an extension of old
fashioned terrorism, but is a brand new
version. Several of today’s
terrorist groups have as their abiding
faith that political power must be
anchored in religious zeal. This has
helped shape new linkages and coupled
with the ability to exploit modern
technology, global diversity and
connectedness, given terrorism a new
dimension. The idea of ‘religious
war’ inspires the Islamist diaspora
worldwide.
There is
no denying that many of the new terrorist
centres for recruitment, training and
financing are located in countries such
as Britain and in Western Europe.
Narayanan, former chief of Intelligence
Bureau (IB),is quite on the mark as he
points out that legitimate business
activities often serve as a cover, both
for terrorist activities and for
financing them. Money laundering remains
the staple method of transferring funds.
Terrorist financing is increasingly
beginning to resemble the financing
methods of organized crime cartels
worldwide.
Counter-terrorism
experts can’t be tension-free,
considering the unity of response on
basic issues that is seen among modern
day radical Islamist terrorists.It
permits a Kashmiri-speaking jihadi
belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the
Jaish-e-Mohammed to relate more closely
with the Hamas in Palestine, the
Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Huji in
Bangladesh than with other brands of
militants fighting an ethnic battle on
secular principles.
A number
of incidents and happenings in recent
times have established that the newer
breed of terrorists tends to be more
diabolical in intent,displays greater
daring in carrying out their tasks and
its more meticulous in planning and
preparing an operation. It is the scale
of casualties that provides the
‘oxygen’ for the modern
terrorist.
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Cogeneration
: A way out of energy crisis
By Arvinder Kaur
Escalating cost of
power, growing demand resulting in continued
shortages, unreliable quality, dependency on
Central and State grids and frequently changing
Government policies these are the grim realities
of current power scenario in India. According to
estimates, overall power demand in the country is
expected to increase to 1,192 billion kilowatt
hours in 2002, around three times what was in
1996.
Experts say India,
which accounts for around 85 per cent of the
South Asian electricity generation, is in the
midst of a serious energy crisis, with current
generation around 30 per cent below demand. There
is need to invest heavily in new generating
capacity, exploring at the same time newer
options keeping in mind the fossil fuel
shortages.
Cogeneration, also
known as combined heat and power or CHP, wherever
feasible is an effective solution to the problem,
say experts noting cogeneration should be taken
up as a national priority and promoted through
strategies and measures.
India has an
estimated potential of generating 100,000 MW from
CHP sources. However, so far only three percent
of this has been achieved. Existing barriers
related to policy, regulatory framework, fiscal
incentives, technology upgradation and capacity
building issues need to be resolved to utilise
its complete potential.
CHP basically
refers to generation from a unit set up by
industry for its exclusive consumption. Sugar
industry in India is an example of how
cogeneration can successfully help reduce
dependence on fossil fuels.
India, one of the
leading sugarcane producers of the world, has
realised the potential of bagasse, a by-product
of the sugar industry for power generation and
come up with various programmes and incentives to
boost the sector. India produces 40 million
metric tonnes of bagasse, which is mostly used as
a captive boiler fuel.
Sugar mills in the
country, especially in the private sector have
invested in power cogeneration systems by
employing high pressure boilers and condensing
cum extraction turbines. These sugar mills have
been able to export power in the season as well
as in the off-season by using bagasse or any
other locally available biomass.
Off - season
operation has been more lucrative by exporting
power which earlier was non-existent except some
operation and maintenance work. High technology
has made these sugar mills efficient by improving
economic viability of the mills in terms of
higher production of units of electricity per
unit of bagasse.
The ministry of
non-conventional energy sources and United States
Agency for International Development have joined
hands to create awareness among the Indian
industry for shifting to CHP. A lead Program
Partnership Initiative has been launched by the
ministry, under which a Maharashtra consultancy
company has identified 50 projects aggregating
500 MW spread over nine major sugar-producing
states.
Under the national
programme, the ministry has also extended capital
subsidies for cogeneration projects.
Cogeneration, besides being cost effective also
reduces greenhouse emission as it uses biomass as
fuel. Bagasse and other biomass, which are
renewable, can play a major role in substituting
fossil fuel for future power generation.
Under its
Greenhouse as Prevention Project, USAID provided
technical assistance, training and grants
amounting to 7 million dollars to private sugar
industries in India to set up advanced
cogeneration activities. Eight such projects have
already been commissioned with aggregate
installed fuel capacity of 175 MW. They are
currently generating and selling power to the
grid.
It is estimated
that since 1996, these cogeneration projects have
led to a reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by
2.5 million tonnes.
CHP and various
other forms of decentralised energy systems are
emerging as more efficient and eco-friendly
alternatives compared to large, centralised
energy supply systems the world over. The main
advantages of these localised and small energy
systems are higher efficiency, fuel resource
optimisation, reduced transmission and
distribution losses, environment friendliness and
improved reliability and quality of electricity.
CHP and
decentralised energy systems contribute upto 40
per cent of the energy supply in the US, Europe
and other developed countries. This is due to
significant improvements in technology and cost
effectiveness as well as provisions of a
supportive, long-term policy framework, even with
preferential tariffs.
A number of
industries in various sectors in India are also
now relying on their own generation
(cogeneration) rather than on grid supply because
of non-availability of adequate grid supply; poor
quality and reliability of grid supply and high
tariff as a result of heavy cross-subsidisation.
Though sugar mills
by design are cogenerative, other industries like
textiles, cement and paper are shifting to CHP
and producting heat and power from one source to
meet their internal needs.
However, the State
Governments and SEBs are not very forthcoming in
granting licences for cogeneration projects.
Experts say the Government agencies feel captive
plants may adversely affect their finances and
that cogeneration in the long future would become
a source of firm power. Barely 300 MW of
cogeneration has been implemented in India so
far, much below the estimated potential of 3,500
MW, which can be attributed to several policy,
financial, and institutional barriers.
PTI Feature
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