National

Waiting For The Light

July 1 was D-day for Delhi with power distribution going private. But deliverance was not to be. What went wrong?

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Waiting For The Light
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On the night of June 30, the citizens of Delhi went to sleep with great expectations. The next day the capital's electricity distribution was to go to the private sector (the Tata Power Company, TPC, and the Bombay Suburban Electric Supply Company, BSES). It promised an end to the power woes that had plagued Delhiites for decades. But by the morning after, the dream had turned to nightmare. Far from seeing any improvement, Delhi plunged into one of its worst power crises ever with the whole city witnessing 5-6 hours of power cuts. What was to be a seamless transfer from government control to private hands turned out to be one hellish experience.

A fortnight later, the situation was possibly worse. Power cuts continued. In areas that had power, voltage was way below required levels. Citizens were taking to the streets, blocking traffic, even turning violent. Their woes were compounded by one of Delhi's hottest summers in years.

But why did all hell break loose on July 1? Did the new firms not anticipate the problems in managing Delhi? Says Anil Sardana of TPC, who is CEO of the North-North West Delhi Distribution Company (NNDC): "There are no problems that weren't expected. But the entire system is in such a state that it will take time to bring it to order." The state government is blaming much of it on deliberate sabotage by ground staff, as part of an Opposition ploy to show the distribution companies (discoms) in a bad light and discredit the state government. "Someone is definitely involved in sabotage, but it's difficult to point out who," says Sardana.

Sabotage apart, the discoms seem overwhelmed by the scale of operations, the state of the equipment and its maintenance, as well as practical problems that have been deep-rooted in the capital's electricity usage.

Delhi is one of the nation's largest power consumers. Out of a national generation of around 1,00,000 MW daily, Delhi alone consumes about 3,000 MW. The Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) produces just about 400 MW of this demand. The rest it buys from the Northern Grid and nearby states of Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The capital also faces a worse problem, one of the highest rates of transmission & distribution (T&D) losses in the country. A Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) study shows that T&D losses have increased from 22.6 per cent to a whopping 46.8 per cent in the last few years. Add to that loss from billing and collection and the figure shoots up to 57 per cent. Compare that with figures for Calcutta (19 per cent) and Mumbai, which has T&D losses of just 11 per cent.

To top all this, Delhi's power demands have been growing at about 12 per cent annually for the last two years, without matching capacity addition. The existing system was forced to take the increasing load, making it fragile. While official estimates show power demand in Delhi peaking at around 3,000 MW, TERI expects peak demand to go up to 3,500 MW in 2002. It already touched 3,280 MW in July. Against this, the total availability is around 2,600-2,800 MW.

The state of equipment in DVB is a story in itself. Says Debasis Bagchi, IPS, who headed DVB's enforcement and vigilance departments till June 30: "A majority of the transformers used are not fit for the load they take and there's no one to verify or certify them." In many cases, 400 KV transformers are carrying loads of 800-1,000 KV. About 40 per cent of the cables are also old, breaking down frequently. Much of the switchgear is obsolete, either beyond repair or the manufacturing firms have closed down, making spares unavailable. TPC and BSES officials feel that most of the equipment was not of the required quality and not condition-monitored—an essential requirement for electrical equipment.

And of course, there was no maintenance. Says Bagchi: "Maintenance in DVB was a big question mark. In most cases, nothing was done. Despite a huge manpower of engineers, work was regularly given to outside contractors. Since there was no one to check, there was no quality control anywhere."

Agrees Sardana: "Since privatisation of DVB was announced two years ago, no investment was made in the system, which was put to extensive use due to increasing demand. The entire system has become so fragile that it's leading to massive breakdowns."

One of the biggest problems the discoms face is large-scale power theft. According to estimates, about half of Delhi's total T&D losses is due to theft. Says Sardana: "While T&D losses are accounted for, large-scale theft is not built into the design. This is leading to frequent system failures."

What is surprising is that most of Delhi's power losses due to theft comes from its posh colonies. These include areas like Greater Kailash, South Extension, Vasant Vihar and Panchsheel Park. According to DVB officials, affluent colonies have accounted for 40-75 per cent of electricity theft over the years. They say that DVB's raids on 3,000 unauthorised colonies and jhuggi clusters found theft of a mere 18 KW, while raids in just two guesthouses in upmarket South Extension revealed a theft of 214 KW.

According to Bagchi, who led a one-man crusade against power theft, 8.2 per cent of people living in Delhi's posh colonies accounted for 75 per cent of Delhi's power thefts in September 2001. Even more striking is the fact that for the 26 lakh registered electricity users in Delhi, DVB had only 64 men to check power theft.

There are other problems too. Billing and collection efficiency was extremely poor with only 55 per cent of energy generated being billed, of which only 41 per cent was collected. Many people also run commercial activities on residential connections, overdrawing electricity without accounting for it.

In Old Delhi, several houses have old connections with a payload of 0.25, 0.5 and 1 KW, enough to run only a few bulbs and fans. Yet, they run high power-consuming equipment like ACs, microwave ovens and water heaters. Despite repeated notifications, these people haven't upgraded connections. In fact, the government had issued a notification in '98, asking all AC owners to register it with the DVB. Till date, only about 15-20 ACs have been registered.

DVB officials also say a large percentage of Delhi power meters run at slower than normal speeds, recording much less electricity than actually consumed. Says an official: "These meters run slow by 15 to 70 per cent. Our proposals to replace all meters older than 15 years fell on deaf ears."

So then, when will the situation improve? There are no overnight solutions, say TPC and BSES officials. A TPC official says: "Improvements are targeted over a five-year period. There is a year-wise plan, but the first year will see limited improvement as considerable time will be needed for a detailed assessment of refurbishment and for putting new systems in place." And the cost? An annual capital expenditure of at least Rs 60 crore over and above a revenue expenditure of Rs 40-50 crore.

Others of course feel the fault lies in the new management and blame the discoms' poor planning for the current miseries. Says a DVB official: "We have worked with the same system for so long but didn't face such problems. In fact, DVB's performance had improved in the last few months. In certain areas, power cuts were unheard of." Bagchi too feels that not much thought has gone into fault maintenance and checking power theft. Says he: "Most of the checking and enforcement mechanism put in place by the DVB ceased to function from July 1. As a result, theft is rampant again. Due to staff laxity, fault detection is also taking more time than usual." The discoms will need to quickly get the thousands of laggard and dishonest employees they have inherited from DVB to fall in line. That's a truly gargantuan task, in a city grossly short on ethics and civic sense.

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