The Need to Harness Power Before The Glory

By JB Lama

According to the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation, the North-east can generate about 58,971 MW — 40 per cent of India’s hydro potential – of which barely two per cent has been harnessed. The region also has abundant coal reserves — estimated at 945.03 million tons for thermal power (compared to the country’s 186 billion tons) capable of generating 30,000 MW for 50 years — and natural gas (151.68 billion cu.m) that can produce 3,000 MW for 30 years.

Neepco regrets that despite this vast potential the region ranks lowest in the country in terms of per capita energy consumption (in the 1990s it was estimated at around 75 kwh against the national average of about 235 kwh).

Among the reasons it cites are inhospitable climatic conditions and remote and inaccessible geographical locations. To this must be added the ubiquitous presence of numerous ethnic rebel outfits demanding “taxes”.

The corporation, however, predicts that once infrastructure improves the region will become the powerhouse of India by using its surplus potential, especially in hydel. The big question is when and who will oversee this?

A 1992 North-east Congress Coordination Committee report says the Neepco was constituted in April 1976 on the basis of a resolution passed by the North Eastern Council with the avowed objectives of planning, promoting and organizing an integrated and efficient electric power development in the region, in every aspect, including transmission, distribution and sale of power. It noted that the Neepco was “unhappy with the Centre for its alleged indifference to the problems it had been facing at various levels, unhappy over the lack of local cooperation and also unhappy with itself for not being able to manage affairs efficiently and economically”.

What must have upset the Neepco’s calculation most was the Centre’s decision to separate transmission and generation and the order that it fall in line. The report further adds that by separating transmission from generation the very objective of a regional level corporation for power development was negated.

Be that as it may, the Neepco has acquitted itself creditably well by executing, among others, the 275-MW Kopili (North Cachar Hills) hydel project, the 291-MW Assam gas-based power project, the 84-MW Agartala gas turbine project, the 75-MW Doyang (Nagaland) hydel unit and the 405-MW Ranganadi hydro project (Arunachal Pradesh).

The Arunachalese can look forward to brighter days. The state government is gearing up to harness its capacity of 50,000 MW. Little wonder then that it has signed a number of memorandums of understanding with private power agencies for mega projects, even ignoring stiff resistance from locals and environmentalists. By 2020, it hopes to generate 25,000 MW at a whooping investment of Rs 200,000 crore.

Other states are not so lucky. Meghalaya, once surplus and which supplied power to other states, now suffers from regular load-shedding when the water level at Umiam lake falls. Meghalaya’s principal secretary (power) was quoted last week as saying that by 2014 the state will have 800 MW when two projects under construction are completed. Today it has a deficit of 215 MW.

In Manipur, the commissioning in 1984 of the prestigious 105-MW multipurpose Centrally-sponsored Loktak Hydel Project has failed to even meet the state’s meagre need of 25 MW. Manipur consumers are the worst sufferers. Greater parts of Imphal town remain without power for hours together. Engineers do not admit there being any shortage, instead saying there are only power cuts for which their predecessors are to blame for using substandard transformers and equipment or lack of rain in the Loktak Lake area.

The Manipur government is going ahead with the Rs  8,138-crore Tipaimukh multipurpose hydro project. It will be executed by the state-owned National Hydro Electric Project and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam. The Loktak project took more than 15 years to commission, so it is anybody’s guess when Tipaimukh will be completed, though officials are confident the job will be done in 84 months.

Nagaland is perennially short of power and it, perforce, has to depend on neighboring states.
Addressing a conference on “Empowering North East”, sponsored by the Meghalaya government and the Indian Chambers of Commerce and held in Shillong at the end of last month, Neepco chaiman and managing director IP Barua stressed the need for a unifom hydel policy to develop power in a coordinated manner in partnership with neighboring countries.

A sensible suggestion that deserves attention because, if today the vast potential of tourism in the North-east has remained unexploited it is because there is no uniform policy on tourism. Similarly, in the absence of any uniform policy on insurgency the Centre is talking to only one Naga group, ignoring others who are equally potent.

It needs to be noted that while in all other states the Centre has signed ceasefire accords with rebel outfits, it is chary of such a deal with Meitei insurgents.

Assam has done well by opening power generation, both conventional and unconventional, to the private sector in 2006 with the focus on thermal power. All that the Assam State Electricity Board generates is 100 MW, against the peak hour demand of 800 MW. It hopes to become self-sufficient in the next six years. Once the 500-MW Bongoigaon thermal power project — the foundation of which the Prime Minister laid in 2005 — is completed, Assam will be in a comfortable position.

Here one must express a modest hope that once the Northeast states become self-sufficient in power, they will then concentrate on rural electrification.