People's Democracy

TRIPURA

Who’s Responsible for Power Tariff Hike?

Haripada Das

FEELING itself starved of issues against the Left Front government of Tripura, the state Congress has now got a ‘juicy’ issue, i.e. recent hike in consumer power tariff. Over it, they are now making an all over the state.

In June, the Congress led government at the centre abruptly raised the price of natural gas from Rs 2376 to 5133 per cubic metre, i.e. by about 116 per cent. While thus helping the Ambani brothers reap super profits from gas fields which they have been allowed to exploit, the centre did not consider the adverse effects the people and the states depending on natural gas for power generation may face.

It is known that power tariff in a state is regulated by a commission appointed under the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act, passed by the NDA government in 1998. The Congress allowed the bill pass through in parliament. The bill gives the commission absolute authority to regulate power tariff, free from interference by any government. In fact, through this act, the central government snatched from the states all the scope to regulate tariff. Then came the final stroke. The Electricity Act 2003, which also got support from the Congress, pulled out power from the concurrent list. With these two acts, the centre left no scope for the state governments in generation, transportation and distribution of power or regulation of tariff.

PROTEST

UNHEEDED

In Tripura, except Damboor hydel plant generating 8 MW per day, all other power plants are thermal plants running on natural gas. During the dry spell when the water level of the reservoir comes down, the Damboor plant ceases generation for several months. An 84 MW capacity NEC plant is based on natural gas while the work on two more gas-based power plants, one by ONGC and other by NEC, are in progress. Altogether, 92 per cent of the state’s total power generation is based on natural gas. So this steep hike in the natural gas price has a disastrous effect on Tripura which is almost totally dependent on gas for power generation.    

The government of Tripura, along with those of other north eastern states, vehemently protested against this hike. State chief minister Manik Sarkar and power minister Manik Dey wrote to the prime minister and central power minister urging for exempting at least the north eastern states from this hike. Tripura Left Front Committee and the CPI(M) state committee also protested. All the three MPs from Tripura met Murali Deora, union power minister, and submitted a joint memorandum urging exemption for the NE states. DYFI and other mass organisations organised protest demonstration before the office of the GAIL and ONGC protesting this hike of natural gas price. But the UPA government preferred to serve the interest of the corporate sectors including Ambani brothers, instead of rendering relief to the backward states of this region.

As a matter of fact, the Electricity Regulatory Authority, an independent body to take care of the financial aspects of Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd (TSECL), has calculated a flat rise of Rs 2.09 per unit of power for meeting its additional expenses following the gas price hike. Considering this hike to be too much for the consumers, most of whom are poor, middle class and BPL holders enjoying Kutir Jyoti connections, the TSECL then reduced the hike to Rs 1.40 per unit. Further, in its cabinet meeting held on September 23, state Left Front government decided to pay subsidy to the BPL families and consumers of three lower slabs. The number of consumers that would fall under the purview of this subsidy scheme is 4,24,372 (98.55 per cent) out of the total 4,60,723 consumers in the state. Including the subsidy on the power used for irrigation and drinking water, the additional financial burden to be borne by the state exchequer will stand at Rs 22 crore per annum. (Unlike nowhere in the country, the Left Front government of Tripura provides irrigation and drinking water to the consumers free of cost and bears the entire electricity cost for these purposes.) Altogether, an extent of Rs 77 crore per annum is paid by the government of Tripura as subsidy, in order to render relief to the jhumias, the landless, kisans, agricultural workers, rural artisans, students etc. The subsidy given by the government is shown in Table 1 below.

In sum, even after the recent enhancement, power tariff now in force in Tripura is still lower than in many advanced states of the country.

DIVERSIONARY

TACTIC

To divert the people’s attention from this hard fact and hide the anti-people measure of the UPA government of hiking the natural gas price, the state Congress started making uproar all through the state, seeking to put the state government in the dock. They are propagating that the state government has failed to contain the transportation loss of electricity and is therefore burdening the poor consumers with the cost of lost power. If this could be reduced to zero, they argue, consumers could be provided electricity at a much cheaper rate. Here also, the Congress is resorting to mischief in order to mislead the people. Without some transportation loss or system loss, electricity can never be provided to consumers. It is an unavoidable part of the system in electricity, though its extent varies according to distance from the generating point, character of geographical terrain, number of connections etc. In Tripura, as we can see from Table 2, power transportation loss is much below compared to the many other states in the country.

Inaugurating a 21 MW gas based thermal power plant at Baramura in West Tripura on September 21, chief minister Manik Sarkar expressed satisfaction that the plant had been commissioned at last, despite non-cooperation from the centre. At the same time, he criticised the dilly-dallying negative attitude adopted by the centre for giving a sanction to this plant. It is an accepted norm in respect of the North East that the central government bear the financial responsibility to the extent of 90 per cent for setting up any plant and industry here. But when the proposal for this plant was mooted, the central government refused to allocate 90 per cent finance and imposed the entire liability on the state government. After a long series of arguments and correspondence, ultimately the centre had to accept the reasons put forward by the state government and concede fund sharing in the 90:10 ratio. This plant would have been commissioned two years back, however, in only the central government had extended cooperation to the state government from the beginning, the chief minister repented.  

Does the state Congress feel that that its deceitful tactic would not be comprehended by the common people. However, our experience is different. We do believe that the politically conscious democratic people of Tripura would not fail to recognise that the Congress has done nothing for the poor people except making false and deceitful promises.

Table 1: Subsidy on Power in Tripura

Table 2: Transportation Loss of Electricity, 2009-10