Shiban Khaibri
When Economics is made subservient to sheer politics, then we can remind ourselves of what once Franklin Roosevelt said, “We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics.” Here self interest is metaphoric of the supreme importance given to winning elections and protecting votes, necessarily not the voter. This unfortunately has been ruling supreme in our country when economic decisions are to be taken which usually entails a good measure of fiscal and monetary discipline and since discipline is proverbial no loose shunting, that could momentarily antagonize some people in the society. Our state is undoubtedly one of the prosperous states of India and there being good scope to widen the base of earning revenues, the same is circumvented purposely under the garb of “economically poor state”. Well, that is a debatable point and conclusions drawn that necessarily our state is too poor to afford exploring various options to increase state’s revenues and usually spend them for the welfare of the people, roads, cleanliness, water, power and other infrastructural development is politically motivated . It is quite disheartening to learn, for example, that the power liabilities of the state have reached all time high amounting to Rs.5154 crores. This sounds quite alarming. Let us come out of the “traditional politics” of so called Kashmir issue, talk with Pakistan, CBMs and allied matters and talk something like elementary economics or financial principles and reassure ourselves that talking a particular brand of politics sounds nice so long as we are not hungry and our children are not denied their elementary requirements since perhaps the only bread earner, a state government employee has not got his or her wages (Pay) for a few months as there is “cash crunch” or the position of state finances is bad. Why have achieving revenue targets fell short of as much as by 50% in our power sector, poses many a question that revolve around bad economics, faulty planning, unprofessional strategies, non recognition of priorities and most probably, treating politics above economics. The demand for more power cannot be met with the indigenous requirements and the purchases bill going up without realizing the cost thereof even at breakeven point must disturb the sleep of the government and flying colours need not to be claimed seeing comparative marginal increase in revenues. In other words, a breakeven point would mean, in simpler jargon, a point where costs and revenues are equal, no profits are registered, nor any losses are suffered.
This writer had a few months back suggested through these very columns that under the basic commercial principle “use and pay” or “consume and pay” must be the characteristics of the policy of the government as the seller and the propriety of the citizens to pay for it as the users. When we go shopping into a departmental store or at any retail outlet, we get goods and use services first by paying for it, why power or water or any other public service should not be paid for? The gap widening between the cost and the revenue does not auger well for economic health of any firm, company, service provider or any government. The liabilities of unpaid power purchase bill leads to a vicious circle from where it is difficult to come out unless a paradigm shift in evolvement of strategies both in policies as well as in the professional management is resorted to. Are annual targets fixed on overambitious high levels and inconsistent with both the potential of the available man power as well as the quality and the consistency of the supply position or availability position ultimately for the citizen consumer, shall have to be analyzed. Scheduled and unscheduled power cuts even during periods of blistering heat and sultry summer and rainy seasons in Jammu and in freezing cold conditions in Kashmir and Ladakh regions can be the cause as well as the effect of bad economics and consequent faulty planning. What incentives are given to the PDD personnel for showing better performance in revenue realisation? Why is there a chronic shortage of full time linemen as we used to see in good old days at electric sub stations in the cities? Why are there no proper inspections of the load sanctioned and the actual consumption? Why are wastages in transmission and usage not minimized? Street lights are not switched off usually and allowed to light even upto 24 hours nonstop, why? Why a culture of turning off the lights and coolers and ACs in offices, departments, homes, schools not being inculcated? Why is not the long list of unauthorized and illegal connections, “hooks” and thefts not checked? Why is not the loss of revenue on this count educated, if not propagated through media and other medium among the people? If “sarkar” is having a lackadaisical approach, the citizenry too would, in most cases, think power as “Sarkar ki Bijli” and treat it as such.
The notion of “unrest among the people” immediately crops up the moment some difficult hard measures are envisaged to break the vicious circle resulting in the situation going or remaining at where it has settled. No wonder we have eight to nine hours power cut or failures when we have torrential rains or a forceful breeze passes across and face all allied problems. We seem to be content with the traditional proverbial maxim of “Jitney chaddar lambhi, utnay paon passaar”. But again some question the logic of “Hamarie chaadar main koye aur kiyun paon rakhay” ? In other words, if we pay no matter whatever, why should “hookers” and unauthorized connection “wallas” enjoy at our cost?
A bit of another type of politics is, on the other hand, being played in the shape of asking the centre to return those power projects which are run by NHPC in our state, while on the other hand there are as many as more than 100 power projects under the control of the state government totally either not at all functioning or are shut down. These are with the power generation capacity of 100 MWs. How much a colossal loss of the availability of power badly needed by the state which is slightly far from our reach and perhaps non availability of funds is appearing to be a conundrum? The problem gets accentuated with deferred starting and completion of any such project as the cost thereof exceeds the original estimated cost. The positive aspect of the problem, however, is that its sensitivity has been underlined in that the Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Nirmal Singh directing the PDD to lay more emphasis on recovery of due revenue , to frame inspection squads and to check losses and wastages . At the same time, he has reminded the officers to remain sensitive towards the problems of the people particularly about the repairing and immediate replacement of transformers, regularizing the unregistered consumers etc. Although he stressed upon the officers to work in coordination to “achieve desired results”, it remains to be seen whether speeches and statements of politicians on the issue get translated into action on the ground or not. After all, people ask how long shall they continue to suffer on account of absence of uninterrupted power supply when they are ready to pay and there is tremendous potential for power to be generated and attained self sufficiency, used in the state and exported the same to other states and earn revenues to develop our state. The previous governments in the state are on record to have claimed so, latest before the year 2020. Let there be a turnaround in the area of power, well during the tenor of the present coalition government in the state. It is wisely said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”
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