Slice wise power foolish

This is a sequel to Farid Bakht's article (DS: April 02) and a front page report (DS: April 04) on the vagaries of investment in power proposals. One wonders if these reports at all even prick the thick hide of officialdom? The need for power generation for progress and development is endlessly spelt out by our powers to be. Unfortunately, it is all talk and no action by the government, except cancelling old proposals and going for new ones. In contrast, none but the deprived users talk about loadshedding. Rarely, when the powers to be talk about it; it is to restrain us from using electricity with the threat of disconnection if official orders are not followed!

One may wonder what ails this sector. The first ailment is lack of any coherent plans or actions to back it. We seem to have all the will to go for large mega-power proposals; however the first priority here is the size of the pie for our powers to be! This is acted out year in and year out, blaming the last proposal as inflated and going for a new one on inflation plus basis! Since the slice of the pie is the criteria, naturally the move is towards mega cost based options. Everyone of the stakeholders is busy to carve out as large a slice as possible. No wonder viable options for small power proposals are ignored or shelved; because there is no sizeable slice on offer.

We have lost sight of various small but viable power sourcing options. Added together, these options could enable us to fairly quickly bridge the gap of demand and supply. Unfortunately, mini investment ideas interests no one, which have in effect been totally ignored and forgotten. It lies buried, unexplored, untried and unheard of among mega-proposals floating round.