India has set for itself an ambitious target of meeting uninterrupted 24-hour power supply for every household by March 2019. Union Minister for Power R.K. Singh, commenting upon the objective of the Saubhagya scheme, said the government has a target to provide electricity to all the villages of India which are yet to be electrified.
Speaking during a question hour session in the Parliament he clarified that the government is working towards this. He also stated that strict action will be taken on power discoms that fail to deliver by the set deadline save alone for technical reasons.
Power is a vital ingredient for infrastructure and economic development of the nation and the growth of power sector should commensurate with the country’s GDP growth. Indian power sector’s growth has been significant with All India installed power generation capacity recording 330860.6 MW as on 30th November 2017 as per Economic Survey 2017-18, Volume 2.
In spite of the stellar growth we need to cover some ground. The shortage of power continues to persist on account of demand outstripping the growth in electricity generation as well as capacity addition.
There have been several attempts to augment power supply to India’s rural areas by the government over the years through various schemes. Some of these such as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana or the Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana which envisage the revival of debt-laden discoms address this issue to some extent. But many parts of the country continue to face power shortages primarily due to faster rate of consumption by commercial and industrial establishments.
Bridging this gap between demand and supply is a serious challenge. How do we do this? “The distribution sector is set to attract the most attention, from household electrification to franchisee bids. We will see a new set of players entering. Unbundling of wires and supply can spur innovation in business models. There is huge expectation that the government and utilities run a proper pipeline of bids. In its absence new capital and local supply chain can dry up,” Kameswara Rao, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers was quoted by Livemint as saying.
The country needs to invest in latest technologies besides enhancing the skill set of workers to bring a turnaround. Much depends on the distribution sector which is more or less dominated by state utilities. As these utilities invest in technology and manpower and leverage the opportunities to ensure energy security in the long-term besides maintaining the economic growth momentum we could see some sunny days.
To accelerate this we need to facilitate the entry of private sector participation in a big way which will attract capital inflow as well as innovations. The companies must be allowed to function on commercial lines and distortion in the tariff structure must be eliminated over the long-term. This can channel our country on the right path besides meeting the objective of the Rs. 16,320 Cr Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana ‘Saubhagya’ scheme.
(The author is a Delhi-based journalist. He can be reached at prasad.n@indoen.com)
