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A good beginning
Indo-Pak talks |
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China lifts the peg
The neglected infantry
Pray, and let God worry
Demand for power is growing as incomes rise and governments struggle to keep up the supply. This season Haryana has done well, while Punjab's usually dismal power scene has actually improved. Himchal
Pradesh, which used to be power surplus, has started going downhill. A Tribune team survey
Now shortage in Himachal
No fretting in Haryana
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A good beginning
It
is good that the Group of Ministers on the Bhopal gas tragedy submitted its report to the Prime Minister on Monday. As the Union Cabinet will examine it at a special meeting on June 25, it has not been made public. Nonetheless, among the key issues the GoM discussed in its report were relief for and rehabilitation of the families of the victims of the gas leak 25 years ago. Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram has said that while the GoM’s immediate focus was on providing relief to the affected families, it has also dealt with pursuing Warren Anderson’s extradition, the legal options available to the government, the remediation (clean-up) issues and health-related matters. However, the Rs 1500-crore compensation package recommended by the GoM for the victims and their kin is too little, too late. If the Union Cabinet clears it, the kin of those dead will get Rs 10 lakh, those with permanent disability Rs 5 lakh and those with partial disability Rs 3 lakh. But then, this amount will get reduced further because the money they had received earlier will be deducted from the fresh amount. Many families have lost their bread-earners while many others have been maimed or seriously injured. As it is a tragedy unprecedented in its scale and magnitude, the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government should consider their plight generously and do justice. Equally serious is the question of making those responsible for the tragedy culpable. The GoM is apparently silent about it. The victims’ association and the Opposition leaders have rued that the GoM has not fixed accountability on anyone at any stage — be it on extraditing Warren Anderson to India or other officials responsible for the accident. Nor did the GoM spell out an action plan to seek a review of the Supreme Court ruling that diluted the charges against seven company officials who are now out on bail with a minor punishment of two-year sentence. How can the leak of 40 tonnes of methyl isocynate on the night of December 2-3, 1984, from the UCC plant that claimed as many as 15,000 lives be treated like an ordinary road accident? The ends of justice will be met only if all those responsible are given exemplary punishment for the world’s major industrial disaster. And nobody should be allowed to go scot-free. Only then will the punishment so awarded act as a deterrent.
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Indo-Pak talks
Indo-Pak
talks, slated in Islamabad later this week, will start off with the huge advantage of not having any baggage of expectations. The distrust between the two countries is already so high that neither side would be expecting a major breakthrough in bilateral relations. Indeed, the deliberations already threaten to follow old patterns when Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram meets his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik. Indian concerns over cross-border terrorism, infiltration, ceasefire violation, drug trafficking, fake currency, etc, will predictably be taken up while Pakistan will expectedly question the role of India’s Research & Analysis Wing ( RAW), alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and disputes over the sharing of river waters. Both sides, however, seem to be ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the coming dialogue. The Indian delegation claims to be in an exploratory, and not accusatory, mode on the eve of its departure and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is on record as saying that Pakistan is not interested in a ‘cosmetic engagement’ with India. There is no harm, therefore, in keeping one’s fingers crossed. Indeed, there is a discernible thaw in their relationship after the two Prime Ministers met at Thimphu earlier this year on the sidelines of SAARC. The two sides now seem increasingly keen to talk about trade rather than terror, although sharing of ‘intelligence’ and countering terror will be high on the agenda when both sides meet. Mr Chidambaram is known to be business-like and he can be trusted to convey Indian concerns in as diplomatic a language as possible. With the Indian Foreign Secretary, Ms Nirupama Rao, also slated to hold talks with her counterpart over confidence-building measures and people-to-people contacts, etc, the revival of a joint anti-terror mechanism and more concessions for cross-border trade appear in the realms of possibility. Even as the two sides grapple over the bottlenecks to peace and stability, time is running out for both. With the US pullout from Afghanistan being merely a matter of time, India and Pakistan both will get singed if they fail to cooperate and work for a stable and peaceful region. Under the circumstances, even token gestures like the grant of the ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status, to India, which merely means there would be no discrimination in trade practices, setting up universities or hospitals and the exchange of students and academics will go a long way to reduce the trust-deficit between the two countries.
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China lifts the peg
Global
stocks and commodities zoomed on Monday as China let its currency, pegged at 6.83 against the dollar since 2008, rise. The yuan made the biggest single-day gain since its last revaluation in 2005. China is widely seen as getting an unfair advantage in global exports by not letting its currency appreciate. Now when the People’s Bank of China loosened its control on the yuan, the rest of the world welcomed it. A stronger yuan would make imported goods cheaper for the Chinese, nudging them to buy more of foreign goods, thus boosting growth in the developed world, battered by European debt woes and grappling with the recovery. The US, hit by a severe trade imbalance in favour of China, is toying with legislation to penalise Beijing for undermining its exports. Leaders of developed countries are expected to use the G20 summit in Canada (June 26-27) to pin China down. And Bejing’s announcement over the weekend to ease currency swaps is cleverly timed and meant to fend off global criticism. Few would take China’s sudden turnaround seriously unless the yuan is allowed to find a realistic level against the dollar over a period of time. China unified the exchange rate in 1994, then tweaked it in 2005 and has not allowed the yuan to move up since 2008. Monday’s cheer was short-lived as it became known that China’s central bank had set the yuan’s trading range at Friday’s level. India is among the countries that have suffered as cheap Chinese goods swamped global markets in the recent past. The under-valued yuan has unfairly driven down prices of Chinese products, making it difficult for countries to compete with the rising Asian giant. Even during recession, China’s exports stood at $1.2 trillion in 2009 against India’s 168 billion. Recession-hit countries are expected to press for a free float of the yuan at the G20 summit. How China dodges the issue will be watched with interest.
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Preach not because you have to say something, but because you have something to say. — Richard Whately
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The neglected infantry Although the infantry is called the king and the queen of the battlefield, it is treated as a jack of all trades. Despite being the key combat arm, it is lowest on the priority list of modernisation even as it is involved 24x7 in counter-insurgency operations, stretching from Jammu and Kashmir to the North-East and with an increasing probability of joining the counter-Naxalite drive. Why has the infantry been neglected when it has bagged 80 per cent of all gallantry awards and taken 75 per cent of casualties? Former Army Chief Gen S. Padmanabhan used to say that the Indian Army was fighting a Kargil every 14 months, meaning 517 infantry soldiers were being lost in that period. Why is this insensitivity to casualties and its lagging behind in modernisation? The truth is that the infantry has been taken for granted while modernisation has focused on tanks, guns and aircraft. Conceptually, marginalisation of the infantry happened when after the Gulf war, strategic thinking veered round to the belief that wars were winnable from the air. In 1991, the Gulf war lasted 42 days, and 38 of these were fought from the air. In 1995, the Bosnia campaign was 17 days’ long without any land offensive. The Kosovo war in 1999 was fought for 78 days and entirely from the air. But Afghanistan broke the myth of supremacy of air power. Of the 76-day war, 65 of these were air operations, followed by an 11-day land offensive. The 20-day Iraq war, on the other hand, was entirely a land operation without any preparatory air campaign. The ongoing Afghanistan war is a classic infantry operation. In this period, the Indian experience was very different: from fighting proxy wars in J&K and the North-East to vacating Pakistani aggression in Kargil, these operations were infantry-focussed and handicapped by constraints like minimum force — no use of heavy weapons — and strategic restraint of maintaining the sanctity of the LoC. No other infantry in the world is tasked to combat asymmetrical challenges without the use of the artillery and the air force. Add cumbersome combat gear, substandard weapons and inadequate equipment — it is a wonder how the infantryman does so much with so little. There is yet another handicap. India’s policy is one of merely containing insurgency — keeping the lid on instead of catalysing a political solution. Kashmir is the best example of the military having created the best conditions for a political solution but the government failing to capitalise on it. India has not fought a conventional war since 1971 and is not likely to do in the near future. Low-intensity conflict will be the primary challenge of the future. The blame for the neglect of the infantry must be put on successive Army Chiefs, most of whom were from the infantry. Ironically, the Chiefs from other arms did more to advance the case of infantry modernisation than those from the infantry. It was only after Kargil that holes in the infantry inventory began being plugged through fast-track acquisitions. This deviation in the interest of war preparedness was ultimately trumped by probity, leaving behind the Coffingate scandal and a former Defence Minister and Navy Chief being investigated for fraud. Tinkering began with modernisation, started in the 1990s, to replace World War-II vintage equipment. In 1991, the Review of Combat Echelons was largely an exercise on paper, followed by incorporating lessons from Kargil in 1999. The first serious modernisation attempt was made in 2003 but with a paltry sum of Rs 30 million to provide new weapons, better communications and surveillance, increased mobility and night-fighting capability. Reducing the battle-load of soldiers, improved combat kit projects were undertaken in 2004. Units still struggle with the outdated INSAS rifle and have not found replacement for World War-II sten machine carbine, for example, and battle loads, especially at high altitudes, are still very heavy. By 2005, the outlines of the F INSAS — future infantry soldier as a system — were conceptualised, leading next year to sharing the concept with corporates in the Army-industry partnership conference in 2006. Integral to Infantry Vision-2020 was this statement, “To field in battle by 2020, infantry soldiers, who can read the battle environment instantly and respond either individually or as a tactical team with speed, precision, lethality and agility, exploiting optimally all the supporting combat components.” F INSAS envisages a man-machine mix of five sub-systems. The weapon sub-system is to be a family of robust reliable and modular weapon system to include four variants — carbine/micro-assault rifle, assault rifle and light machine gun complimented with an integrated site featuring thermal imagery, laser pointers and range finders. The helmet sub-system will have a head-up display, integrated with the soldier’s personal computer and other sensors. The personal computer will be attachable to the backpack frame and connected to personal radio and GPS. The radio sub-system will enable soldiers to receive and transmit voice and data signals. The protective clothing will vary for terrain and extreme climate and will include mine protection boots and smart vests with physiological monitoring systems. By 2012 the Army expects to field the first version of F INSAS based on available technology. The Infantry Directorate’s F INSAS project team has studied the modernisation programmes of 20 countries which has helped in refining its project definition. But a lot of work has still to be done. Why the F INSAS project took four years to move from Sena Bhavan to South Block is a mystery, explained by insiders as turbulence in the Infantry Directorate. F INSAS was approved by the then Army Chief, Gen Deepak Kapoor, only in January 2009. F INSAS is at the request for information stage before the General Staff Qualitative Requirement is made. It is extremely unlikely that the first version of F INSAS can be fielded by 2012. The delay by current reckoning could be by three to five years, going by the pace of acquisitions — make or buy. The programme will inevitably encounter the DRDO’s tall promises. Officers in the Army are paranoid about probity and say no one is prepared to take chances when weapons acquisition has become a game of political vendetta. Almost everyone at Army Headquarters is agreed that funding is not the problem; it is how to spend it on time. General Staff Qualitative Requirement makers must get the balance among technology, practical application and cost right based on the Indian experience without aping Western infantry models. Levels of sophistry and technology must be commensurate with what soldiers can master without becoming slaves to equipment. A former Nato commander told a conference recently: “This business of fielding the infantry in multi-mission, multi-role, on digital and network-centric battlefields is great. But for Pete’s sake, our soldiers are being blown up by IEDs in Afghanistan. Let’s fight this war before preparing for the next…” Gen James Mattis, the Marine Corps Commander, told American soldiers last month that human interface is the most important item, “we don’t want things that take geniuses on the battlefield to operate, and, therefore, need to create systems, organisations and equipment that don’t need a master’s degree in maths to operate.” India’s F INSAS General Staff Qualitative Requirement must remember
this.
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Pray, and let God worry EVER wondered how atheists survive? I often do because, since childhood, I have relied on God heavily to bail me out of tight spots I have landed myself into, turned to Him for support in times of weakness and, very often, folded my hands, closed my eyes and asked Him for whatever I want, for myself and for those dear to me. And, whenever I do so, I can’t help thinking who the atheists look up to when the going gets tough, when hope ebbs and pain peaks and when there is no alternative to looking heavenward for succor. For, it’s usually then that miracles have happened for me. In fact, my life is a story of such miracles, big and small. As a child, there were numerous occasions when I prayed to God with a little more reverence during the morning assembly at school. This usually happened when I forgot a notebook or had unfinished homework. I knew God kept His word when the teacher didn’t show up or was too preoccupied to take the class. As I grew up, my belief in Him became stauncher. He, too, never let me down, underlining my faith by manifesting Himself in more ways than one. A few months after my daughter was born, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. As the doctors prepared for surgery, they asked us to say our goodbyes, warning us that she may not survive the surgery. I said my last prayer before she was wheeled into the operation theatre. I told God that it was almost unfair to take away my daughter’s grandmother even before my little one had started school. I implored, “You can’t be unjust if you love me.” When the doctor emerged smiling, I knew a miracle had touched me. My mother recovered and even saw my daughter go to school. But that’s all the time God gave us — just as much as I had asked him for. A couple of months of after my daughter joined school, my mother’s cancer reoccurred. The doctor said she only had a few months. I decided to make one last-ditch effort to please God, thought of my selfishness for a moment and dismissed it, convincing myself, “I’m selfish, that’s why I’m human”. In my prayers, I told Him I was keeping my mother’s Monday fasts for 16 weeks to please Him. The 16 fasts ended in the last week of June. On the Sunday before the seventeenth Monday dawned, my mother passed away. My deadline had ended. God had kept my faith yet again. These are only a few instances which have strengthened my faith in God and I owe much of this to my mother. Even as a 10-year-old, I remember my mother reading out and explaining the abridged English version of the Bhagwad Gita even as I yawned through the 20-minute session. I got my own Christopher Isherwood copy as soon as she thought my faith had been crystalised. I have carried forward this tradition by occasionally reading aloud a chapter from that Gita to my daughter since she turned four. Surprisingly, she enjoys it though she doesn’t understand much. Today, as my mother’s fourth death anniversary nears, I know she’s still with me, in the pages of the Gita she gave to me. Her God is now mine, and my daughter’s as well. Every night, in our prayers, we turn all our worries to Him, knowing He’s going to be awake all night, realising fully that humans, sometimes, may fail us, God never will. As for the atheists, like one of them admits, everything is usually taken care of between “coincidence and convenience”. For everything else, there is
God!
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Demand for power is growing as incomes rise and governments struggle to keep up the supply. This season Haryana has done well, while Punjab's usually dismal power scene has actually improved. Himchal Pradesh, which used to be power surplus, has started going downhill. A Tribune team survey
SMS jokes on the power situation in Punjab started in April this year. People rightly dreaded facing the scorching summer heat with power cuts starting in March itself. A typical joke ran like this "Sukhbir Badal's latest slogan - No if, no but, sirf power cut". Politicians in Punjab feel power can make or break a government. The Akalis have all along put their faith in the free power facility extended to the farming community to pull through. However the virtual bankruptcy of the former PSEB which had accumulated losses of Rs 10,000 crore and an outstanding loan of Rs 16,000 crore forced the government not only to withdraw the free power facility but also restructure the power utility. While farmers now have to pay a nominal rate of Rs 50 per bhp monthly for their tubewell connections, the new power utility Transco is going in for a major overhaul of the transmission system in the state. The new electricity utilities - Powercom and Transco -- have access to more funds now with the PSEB's assets being revalued. A Rs 650 crore project, which has been taken up post-restructuring six weeks back, will see immediate deloading of seven 220 kv stations and 35 sub stations of 66 kv before the start of the paddy transplantation season. More power will be supplied through high-tension lines and most metres will be outside residences in a phased manner, all of which are part of a project started by the Deputy CM to audit energy and cut losses. These measures, accompanied by steep power purchase of Rs 1,093 crore in the next few months, are expected to improve power availability in the state. The government expects to provide six to eight hours of power for the agriculture sector during the paddy season, keeping domestic cuts to a low of two to three hours every day and ensuring there is not more than one compulsory weekly off for the industrial sector. Into the fourth year of its government, the SAD-BJP combine may well see the commissioning of the 540-mega watt Goindwal plant only during its tenure. Sterlite has delayed work on the 1,980 mw Talwandi Sabo project while the 2,640-mw Gidderbaha project is still to take off as finalization of coal linkages have been delayed. The 1320 mw Rajpura plant has only recently been awarded to Larsen and Toubro following a re-tendering process. This means Punjab will still have to wait for another three years to realise its goals on the power front. Though efforts to strengthen the transmission system are likely to help, the government needs to invest in the power sector itself also rather than being dependent on private players only. It could invest in thermal stations at the pitheads in Bihar and Jharkhand besides investing in central projects to ensure it has a continuous access to reasonably priced power that it can use to fulfill its social commitments in the future also.
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Now shortage in Himachal With
hydroelectric projects of 6,485 MW already commissioned, 6,341 MW under execution, 3,526 MW at the pre-implementation stage and another 5,651 MW under allotment Himachal Pradesh is on way to becoming the power house of the country. Yet the tiny hill state is not in a comfortable position and faces a shortage of power, thanks to the wrong policies of the government and its utter failure to carry out any sort of reforms in the over-staffed and highly inefficient state power utility even after implementation of the Electricity Act 2003. The situation is not likely to ease at least for the next two years even though additional capacity of 600 MW will be added with the commissioning of Allain Duhangan, Malana-II, Budhil, Chamera-III and some mini and micro hydroelectric projects during the current financial year. The state will get only 12 percent free power as royalty from these project. The mega 1000 MW Karcham Wangtoo project is also fast nearing completion but it will provide relief to the neighbouring Punjab which has signed an agreement for the purchase of power at Rs 3 per unit. The self-defeating policy of successive governments to allow power-guzzling arc and induction furnace-based steel units has led to a situation where the state utility is forced to purchase power every year at exorbitant prices and supply it at almost half the cost. The BJP made it a big issue during the Congress regime in 2003 and alleged corruption but , intriguingly, after coming to power it sanctioned many more such units even though power was not available, plunging the state in deeper environmental and financial mess. The focus has been on allotment of projects to the private sector and the government is least bothered about their time-bound execution and providing requisite the transmission system. The transmission corporation has virtually remained non-functional because of the failure of the government to unbundle the board ,which itself could not spend more than 10 percent of the funds approved by the SERC for expanding the transmission network over the past three years. As a result, projects are coming up without a transmission system being in place. While big companies executing Allain Duhungan and Karcham Wangtu had the resources to build their own lines, the small developers are a worried lot. With an identified potential of 23,000 MW to be harnessed about 850 big and small projects, mostly located in far-flung pockets, transmission infrastructure should have been the first priority. Even the "unbundling" of the board will not help much as bulk of the transmission assets are not being transferred to the state transmission utility under the model finalised by the government. Delay in unbundling has ruined the board which has accumulated losses to the tune of Rs 263 crore and running an overdraft of over Rs 700 crore. Worse, despite the shortag,e the government has allowed the private companies to sell power outside undermining the state's long-term economic interests. The revenue from the power sector has increased from Rs 49 crore to Rs 1300 crore over the past six years but the government has not invested much in the power sector. It is the only state which has not gone for long-term agreements to meet the winter shortfall and it was among the last to approach the Centre for a proportionate share in various Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP) and as a result got 145 MW. The state could get some relief from power shortage only after 800 MW Kol Dam, 1350 MW Parbati and 412 MW Rampur project, which will come only in the 11th plan, only if the government scrupulously shuns power intensive units, reviews those in the pipeline and secures the right of refusal in private sector projects.
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No fretting in Haryana Power, no matter how much of it is available, is always in short supply. Though a tad better than its "big brother" Punjab, Haryana is no exception to the rule this summer as the mercury continues to rise and there is no sign of the rain even as the paddy sowing season is nearly knocking at the door. If the summer heat's fury has meant a lot of sweat for the 50 lakh-odd consumers of the two power utilities, the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, as these invariably end up "over-loaded", the supply seems inadequate to handle the winter's bone-rattling chill too. So, there's never just enough for everybody. While this year, too, the department has managed power with "outside help", it is at pains to explain that it won't be a summer the farmers, the residents and the industry, faced with unscheduled long-duration power cuts, fret and fume over. In Haryana, so far, the demand has been hovering around 4,200 MW on an average. This very demand has shot up to 5,000 MW-mark as the sowing of paddy gathers pace. In comparison, the state is chipping in with a mere 1,500 MW which will go up to about 2,000 MW once the units of power plants, shut down for repair, become functional. However, from all its sources pooled together, the department has put together a supply of nearly 4,500 MW which includes the purchase made especially to cater to the forthcoming paddy season. The Power Department seems optimistic about its arrangements for the summer season, promising less sweat and more power to its consumers if all goes well. Against a supply of 16 hours to the industry, four hours to agriculture, 12 hours to the rural domestic consumers and 20 hours to the urban domestic consumers, the utilities claim to have given more than the hours fixed for supply in the weeks gone by. While the supply to the agriculture sector has been increased to eight hours, putting an additional burden of about 1,000 MW to meet this requirement, the utilities are hopeful of being able to tide over the difficult period with the purchase agreements already in place to further augment the supply in the next three months. The Managing Director, UHBVN, Arun Kumar, explains that the Power Department carried out an assessment of the demand and supply for the paddy season from June to September and identified the gaps in demand. Based on the report, banking arrangements have been made with Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal , Orrisa , Assam and Kerala. While the Department has organised itself for the peak season, a number of units of various power projects will be commissioned over the next two years, taking the state towards self-sufficiency. Giving details, the Power Secretary, Madhusudan Prasad, said, "The second unit of the Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power Project, Kheddar, will be synchronised on coal in the second week of June, the first unit of the Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project, Jhajjar, is slated to be commissioned in September this year while the second and third units will start generation in January and March next year. This is on a sharing basis between Haryana and Delhi. Then, the two units of the Mahatma Gandhi Super Thermal Power Plant, Jhajjar, will be commissioned in December 2011 and April 2012 respectively.”
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It is June-end now and surprisingly power cuts are limited despite the fact that the state is caught up in a severe heat wave. Politics and restructuring of the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) are partly responsible for the change as well as the person who is the butt of the 'power jokes' - Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.
A shortfall during the lean winter months, when the generation declines to almost 25 percent due to low discharge, has been a common feature. However, this year for the first time the state faced a shortage even during summer, forcing the state power utility to impose restrictions on industrial consumers. A decade ago the state was selling 1,100 to 1,200 mu (million units) of surplus power and the net inter-state sales exceeded 800 mu but this year there will be net deficit of 316 mu. The winter deficit has been projected at 816 mu of which 250 mu will be met by banking during summer and another 250 mu by contra-banking during winter. 
The widening gap between the rising demand and the inadequate supply from the state's own resources has forced the government to explore "greener pastures" to bail them out of all-weather peak-time blues.