Power, or God help us

Hydel power is never enough. Karnataka has no coal deposits. The CM must call the experts

There seems to be an eerie congruity between the Congress and BJP in the attack on NGOs by ruling Congress party leaders in the state Assembly last week, echoing the Narendra Modi government’s hard line on the topic, first demonstrated with a leaked IB report last month, followed by provisions in the Arun Jaitley Budget 2014, which makes it easier for tax authorities to shut down NGOs, trusts and charitable institutions. The Union government says it will get tax officials to cancel the registration of such organisations if they are not working for the stated objectives.

If the leaked IB report said foreign-funded NGOs, like Greenpeace, were “stalling development projects” in India and compromising the nation’s economic security, Congress leader Ramesh Kumar said in the Assembly that he had information from sources in Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) that NGOs in Karnataka had received over Rs 1,000 crore since 2006 and would use foreign funds to hamper development in the state. Home minister K J George assured Ramesh Kumar that the government would query NGOs getting foreign funds and take necessary action.

This is not the first time that parties have publicly come together, even while professing serious mutual hostility and differences over ideologies, when it comes to the ecology-vs-development debate. Parties Left, Right and Centre ganged up in South India on a warning by a panel led by Prof. Madhav Gadgil that many eco-sensitive sites in the Western Ghats would be endangered by mining and mini-hydel power plants. Political leaders across the spectrum went to the extent of opposing the UNESCO's granting of world heritage status to sites in the Ghats in 2012.

UNESCO has come back with another recognition this year giving similar status to The Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) in Himachal Pradesh and politicians are already grumbling. They are worried that the world heritage site status could hurt investments in tourism and mini-hydel plants in the mountains. They should worry because the Union government released a study report in April that clearly blamed in part the mini-hydel projects for causing the alarming and tragic floods in Uttarakhand last year which killed thousands of pilgrims and ruined large tracts of the Himalayas. The Modi sarkar's proposal to launch a university for Himalayan studies will be seen with some suspicion by ecologists and with good reason.

But returning to Karnataka, the Siddaramaiah government faces a real dilemma in the ecology-vs-development debate, especially after the July 5 police firing on protesters in Kudgi, near Bijapur, where local people are against the under-construction 4,000-megawatt (MW) thermal power plant project. The protests are not only against the acquisition of fertile land (4,000 acres) for the project, but also on compensation and the vexing local-vs-outsider question when it comes to jobs and contracts. Many NTPC workers - there are about 6,000 of them on site - have already run away from Kudgi, reports have mentioned.

But the real question before the state government is: "How to generate power?" Neither intellectual bluster nor piety about Mother Earth will answer that question. Karnataka is power-starved. In 2000, both Karnataka and Gujarat, whose development model is always sneered at by the Congress, had similar generation capacity: roughly about 4,400 MW. Today, Gujarat has about 26,000 MW of capacity, though not fully operational, but Karnataka lags at 14,000 MW, at best. The state is forced to buy power (for connected load) and energy from outside, but even the former 'backward' states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are heading into the 'developed' zone and soon will need for themselves all the power they generate.

Siddaramaiah, while ordering the usual magisterial inquiry into the police firing, pleaded with the legislators in the Assembly that Karnataka desperately needed the Rs 15,000-crore super thermal power project at Kudgi. He is right. Without power, the state will not get any further investments in industry or services. Without investment, there will be no jobs, no income for the youth or the state. Everybody will be poorer. The protesters have been misled, he said, mildly. They have been hired, his colleagues suggested, slyly. By foreign-funded NGOs, presumably: “They organise protests against hydel projects, thermal project and other developmental projects using foreign money and portray themselves as saviours of the nation. Such NGOs should be exposed,” Ramesh Kumar said.

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), more than 500 development projects worth over six lakh crore rupees have been either stalled or abandoned altogether in 2013-14. That is what is visible in the glowing reports soon after every "global investors' meet" and the dismal actual conversion-into-project reports, a year later. An instance in Karnataka is the Posco-India Pvt. Ltd’s Halligudi steel project that involved an investment of Rs.32,300 crore which the company abandoned because of land acquisition problems and mining scams that led to delays. Another serious reason, obviously, will be inadequate power supply, now and for many years to come. The monsoons will always be erratic and hydel power is never enough. Karnataka has no coal deposits. The chief minister must call a conference of experts — both technical and ecological — and consult with all stakeholders from industry, business, society and politics to find a balance between conflicting goals. Or, God help us, truly.