Bihar's Special Status: Development, Democracy & Demonstration

Bihar, in the eastern part of India is a very peculiar state. There are many things that Bihar could have been. With its fertile lands and network of rivers, it could have been a hub of agriculture. With its ancient centres of education and enlightenment, it could have been a hub of education. With its proximity to mineral resources in Jharkhand (previously a part of Bihar), to ports in Kolkata and to international borders (Bihar shares a long border with Nepal), it could have been a hub of industries and trade. But, Bihar is non of these.

Looking at the road ahead for Bihar

Bihar is one of the least developed states of India. Low levels of farm productivity, low levels of education, low levels of human development and high levels of unemployment and migration mar Bihar. Add to this the lack of critical infrastructure, primarily electricity. However, for the last few years Bihar has been hitting the headlines for all the right reasons. Improving infrastructure like roads, increasing farm productivity, new educational institutions have brought Bihar back on the path of development. In the recent years Bihar has seen a rise in (economic) growth rate and improvement in human development. However, one infrastructure provision that lacks and hurts the state big time is electricity. Bihar has one of the lowest generation capacities and per capita electricity consumption in the country. According to the census 2011, Bihar has the lowest percentage of households using electricity as the main source for lighting. The last 6 months that I spent in Bihar gave me a first hand experience of the abysmal electricity situation of the state. During my visit to the border district of West Champaran, the hotel that I stayed in had no electricity connection. They didn't apply for a connection as they didn't want to pay the high access (fixed) costs for abysmally low levels of electricity availability. The solution; they ran big diesel generators 24 hours to power all the modern comforts in the hotel. Electricity seems be the big issue that has been weighing down and could potentially pull down the Bihar government currently currently in its second consecutive term. To be fair Bihar government has been trying to set up new power plants in both the government and private sectors. However, even after several requests it has not been able to convince the central government to allot coal blocks for its planned expansion of the power production infrastructure. This seems a bit unfair considering that Bihar used to be one of the most coal rich states in India until one day all of those reserves were taken away upon the separation of Jharkhand. From then on a combination of lack of vision, bad governance and discord between the state and the central governments further degraded Bihar's electricity infrastructure.

Was there a grid breakdown?

NYT talking about the blackout

UK got into the Indian news too

I hear that on the 30th and 31st of July, the world woke up to the news of the biggest blackout in history, the great Indian blackout. First chaos and then darkness engulfed most of north India (well, darkness yes but not chaos really).

 

The nifty map with black and yellow (Courtesy: Hindustan Times)

Return of the shirtless

No, this post is not about the Bollywood film star Salman Khan or his new movie "Ek tha Tiger" (There was a Tiger). Although, the caption would be befitting for Salman considering that he is a serial offender in cases of 'going shirtless'.

This post is also not about villages and electricity in villages, the theme of my research. This post is based on a city called Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi. Although, the second part of Gurgaon (Gur-gaon), gaon, means village. However, several years ago, this village metamorphosed into a city and is now popularly known as the millennium city (I have no idea why). Gurgaon is the base for several multinational companies and houses a large number of middle class executives (working in these multinationals). It also seems to be the first choice of the NRIs returning to India. To house these executives and NRIs, who are mostly migrants from various parts of India, a big network of apartment buildings and housing societies has been created (well, a lot of it is still being created). It seems very much of an organic city, always growing and constructing new buildings (commercial and domestic) in some part or the other (contributing to high amounts of particulate matter in the air). Another characteristic of the city (or gaon) is that it seems to be one of the most expensive cities in India. With prices of apartments skyrocketing (probably riding on the multinational and NRI money), the lower middle class families find it difficult to settle down here.

 

A more down to earth office building in Gurgaon

Have you heard of Husk Power

HPS banner (Courtesy: HPS website)

"tamso ma jyotirgamayam", meaning "from darkness, take me to light". This is the Sanskrit script in the lower left corner of the picture above. This is the tag line, the punch line of Husk Power Systems and very clearly signifies its motives.

As per husk power system's website,

"We are world leaders in decentralised generation and distribution of electric power.
Husk Power Systems (“HPS”) lighted the first village from its first 100% biomass based power plant that uses discarded rice husks to generate electricity in August 2007 and today it has installed 60 mini-power plants that power ~ 25,000 households in more than 250 villages and hamlets and impact lives of approximately 150,000 people in rural India."

I am not sure about their world leadership or the numbers presented above but they sure seem to be creating a revolution, an example in the Indian state of Bihar. An enterprise started by some youth from Bihar, HPS seems to be a combination of good intentions and good business sense. Numerous articles discussing HPS talk about Gyanesh Pandey, Ratnesh Yadav and Manoj Sinha talk about their Bihari roots and their motivations to do something for their own state. With this motivation they looked for options and opportunity to provide an effective rural electrification solution. Again, according to their website:

Energy and protest politics: insiders and outsiders

Continuing the discussion on the politics of protest from the last week's post on the rise in petrol prices in India, this time we take a look at the actors who are not a part of the central government regime. so, while last week we talked about the protest politics of the regime participants or the coalition partners, this time we take a look at the opposition.
While, it is a rare site to see most of India's political parties unite on a single issue, it happened this time on the issue of petrol price rise. The opposition parties united in their criticism for the government. However, several commentators have questioned the seriousness of the opposition parties. Indeed protesting against the government's actions is somewhat of a reflex action for the opposition parties. It was pointed out that, BJP (India's principal opposition party) itself raised the fuel prices about 30 times during its 5 years in power. The BJP however has argued that, it followed the global crude prices (an argument that the government has made for the current hike). Also, a critical and probably valid argument made by the BJP is that of slow and subsequent price rise. This saved the consumers from a sudden burden and gave them a chance to adjust their budgets. The sudden and steep price hike of Rs 7.50 has been argued to have broken the budget of several middle class households.

Communist parties protest against price rise in 2010

Energy and protest politics

A few weeks ago, the people of India were gifted with one of the steepest hike in petrol prices; a hike of about Rs 7.5. This came as a surprise to many while some commentators argued that this was a natural hike. While the Indian people have been quietly protesting (in their drawing rooms) the continuous hike in petrol prices that came after its deregulation in 2010, this time the protest was much more vocal due to the steepness of the hike.

 

Strike and protest in Bihar state of India against fuel price rise in 2010

While the government has pointed out that this sudden rise in prices has come due to the rising global crude prices, several commentators have argued that the government forced itself in a corner. It is being argued, that this rise in prices could have been brought slowly and subsequently but the government (or should we say the ruling party) did not do this due to the high stakes in some of the impending state elections, namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttrarakhand, Goa and Punjab. As we all know, Congress, the biggest party of the ruling alliance (UPA) in India lost heavely in the UP elections. Ultimately the loss in the UP elections and the falling government credibility (and perception) has resulted in a case of maya mili na ram (neither worldly pleasure nor heavenly) for the government.

Why focus on electricity access for rural India?

In an earlier post, Electricity access: Whats the big deal?, I discussed the relationship between electricity access and human development. So, I will not repeat the importance of electricity and its access. However, having looked at the idea of development in a wider sense now, I will discuss and debate development in a later post. In any case, electricity being a driver of development doesn't seem to be contingent on the definition of development. However, electricity is just a tool and its deployment will aways depend on how we define development.

I will start with the assumption that electricity and its access are critical for development and in this post, I will introduce the problem of electricity access in India and specifically rural India.

Percentage of households with electricity as a lighting source