COMMENTARY
INTERVIEW
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Minister, officials globe trot as Kerala reels under power crunch

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

As Kerala's industries reel under a 100 per cent power cut which was slapped without prior notice last week, all top officials concerned -- including the Kerala State Electricity Board chairman and the minister -- are away on foreign tour.

Though the crisis has led to the closure of several units including Indian Aluminum Industries Limited, Travancore Cochin Chemicals Limited, Kochi and Travancore Electro Chemicals, Pottayam, the government is in no position to review the situation as the officials are expected to return only by the month-end.

Countless jobs are on the line and industrial production has taken a beating, but all that the state government can do is wait for the monsoon.

The gravity of the situation is indicated by the fact that companies like Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Limited, Apollo Tyres, Hindustan Machine Tools and Carbon and Chemicals Limited have cut down their production. The companies are in no position to make alternative arrangements as the move came like a bolt from the blue.

FACT, the largest public sector undertaking in Kerala, has already been incurring a monthly loss of Rs 400 million due to the 50 per cent power cut which was imposed some time back. The company apprehends a major decline in its turnover.

HMT has closed down its foundry unit and has halved the production in the printing and tools sections. Premier Tyres is planning a lay-off at its Kochi unit until the crisis is resolved.

For several units in the Kochi belt, the power cut has come at a time when they were facing acute water shortage. Companies like Cochin Refineries and CACIL had suspended production for about a week due to the water crisis.

Blaming the state government for the sorry state of affairs, the Kerala High Tension and Extra High Tension Consumers Association said the situation would not have been so serious if timely measures were taken. The association had written to the government, asking it impose restrictions from October 1996 itself as the monsoon last year had failed.

The association had also urged the government to implement the Maharashtra model which involved dividing the state into several divisions and imposing restrictions on a rotational basis. This would have averted operational problems triggered by partial power cuts, said association president P C Surendranath.

Once considered a power-surplus state, Kerala has not added any additional generation capacity after 1976, when the Idukki project was commissioned.

The present generation is about 5,700 million units as against a demand of 8,000 million units. Part of the shortfall is met by the central grid, and the current deficit is about 250 million units. The deficit will mount to 11,000 million units by 2000.

To meet this huge deficit, the state has only one project -- the Kayamkuulam thermal power project -- in the pipeline. What is worse, even this project will be commissioned only after three years.

Little wonder the Chamber of Commerce and Industry feels the state will plunge into industrial darkness if immediate steps are not taken.

Although several private agencies have come forward to establish naptha-based units in the state, the naptha quota allocated by the Government of India is not sufficient to produce 700 mw of power. The government has already signed memoranda of understanding for producing about 3,000 mw, but in the absence of naptha many have already backed out. As for hydel projects, they are facing increasing resistance from the environmental lobby.

RELATED STORIES:
Rains will wash Kerala's power problems away
Ernakulam may spark petro drought in Kerala