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न्यूज क्लिपिंग्स् | Why Bharat isn’t India by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Why Bharat isn’t India by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

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published Published on Nov 22, 2009   modified Modified on Nov 22, 2009

The widening chasm between India and Bharat is perhaps best reflected in the manner in which electricity is consumed. The neon-lights of Mumbai and Delhi beckon many with their glitter, but large swathes of territory across the country literally remain in the dark more than six decades after political independence.

The government remains obsessed till today with building mega power projects — even our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had second thoughts about gigantic "temples of modern India" wreaking havoc on the lives of the underprivileged — while paying lip service to renewable energy. Global warming and climate change have become fashionable buzz-phrases, but many remain blissfully oblivious to the harsh ground reality.

Sections of the elite (especially those who wear dark suits and ties in summer and sleeveless shirts in winter because they live and work in airconditioned comfort) guzzle energy in quantities that are voracious by Indian standards, while others living in remote villages walk many miles to charge their cellphones.

Both the macro and micro aspects of the stark disparities in patterns of energy consumption in the country are highlighted in a recently published report by Greenpeace India entitled Still Waiting: A Report on Energy Injustice.

The total installed power generating capacity in the country has gone up more than threefold over the last two decades from 58,012 megawatts in 1989 to 1,52,148 mw in 2009 or an increase of 162 per cent. Between 1992-93 and 2005-06, the average annual consumption of electricity by each Indian has risen by 52 per cent, from 283 units (or kilowatt hour) to 429 kwh. Yet official statistics reveal that as high a proportion as 40 per cent of the total number of households in the country — most of them living in rural areas — still do not have access to electricity.

In this report as well as an earlier one produced in 2007, Greenpeace argues that the Indian government is "hiding behind the poor" by quoting the large number of people living without electricity as the main reason to continue building large centralised power projects based on conventional technology (coal, large hydro or nuclear) despite their known "deleterious" consequences.

One may or may not entirely argue with this position but what is certainly unexceptionable is the recommendation contained in the Greenpeace report (that has been made by many others as well) that in view of India’s widely dispersed population and the stark inequalities in income and wealth, there is an urgent need to better integrate within the broader framework of energy policies, decentralised renewable energy systems (based on wind, hydro schemes, solar photo voltaic cells and biomass).

India is currently the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world and we are expected to reach No. 3 position in the near future. Yet the fact remains that per capita energy consumption in the country is pathetically low if one goes by international comparisons. In 2007, India’s annual per capital energy consumption (543 kwh) was less than a fifth of the world average (2,752 kwh) and less than a fourth that of China (2,328 kwh). The comparison is even more dramatic when one looks at energy consumption by the average American (13,616 kwh), the Swede (15,238 kwh) and the typical citizen of the United Arab Emirates (16,161 kwh).

If one looks at sources of electricity generation in India, the pattern has not changed very much in recent years. Roughly two-thirds of the total power generated in the country is from large thermal plants: 53 per cent using coal, 11 per cent using gas and one per cent using oil. Hydro electricity accounts for a quarter of the total electricity produced while nuclear power is three per cent. This implies that all forms of renewable energy accounts for less than eight per cent of the total power produced in the country. We clearly have a long way to go and hopefully, Union minister in charge of non-conventional energy, Farooq Abdullah, will take his job seriously — as seriously as he takes the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir.

There is a tendency among sections of decision-makers to dismiss the arguments put forward by organisations like Greenpeace as raving and ranting by a bunch of fuddy-duddy idealists, whose faith in non-conventional energy, is unrealistic since renewable energy is unlikely to be able to meet the growing demands of a desperately power-hungry nation. Be that as it may, the latest Greenpeace report is worth reading for the heart-rending case studies it contains.

The cover juxtaposes an aerial photograph of brightly lit Mumbai streets against a picture of Sarojini Rama Naik, who lives in Mahime village in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, holding a candle. She spends a full day in a week walking 10 kms to recharge her mobile phone so that she can be in touch with her children who live and work in cities. This, indeed, is the other side of the great Indian telecom revolution.

The inside cover of the publication carries a photograph of an emaciated 52-year-old Kamruddin who lives in Bokapahadi village that adjoins underground fires that have been burning for decades in Jharia in Dhanbad district, Jharkhand, where the country’s most expensive coal is mined. Kamruddin, like thousands of others, has been suffering from respiratory ailments for more than three decades and is currently in the terminal stage of pneumoconiosis, a killer disease that afflicts coal miners in particular.

This is India, whose Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had humble antecedents and whose eyesight may not have been as poor had he not had to spend long hours during his childhood studying by the dim light of a hurricane lantern. Power has to become more than a mere metaphorical expression to the people.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator


 

 

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