The PTI reports:
Striking a populist chord ahead of the Karnataka assembly polls, the BJP on Friday promised farmers of the state free power supply for irrigation pump sets and farm credit from nationalised banks at 4 per cent interest if voted to power. BJP state unit leader and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa announced that these assurances will be honoured within 24 hours of assuming office if the party came to power. Yeddyurappa said all those who own irrigation pump sets upto 10 Horse Power capacity would get free power supply.
The BJP announcement comes at a time when
the? Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) has reduced the power tariff by five to 25 paise a unit with effect from February 1. 2007-08 according to the Commission had been one of the best years with high availability of power from hydro stations. The commission has also reduced the agricultural tariff for metered irrigation pump sets.
A more mixed view of the power situation in Karnataka emerges from this story in The Hindu which appeared on 28th Dec.??The politics of Power in Karnataka is not unlike in Gujarat with farmers bodies resisting attempts to collect past dues.??Adding a new dimension to the politics of Power in Karnataka is the gradual entry of private firms. According to Rural Electrification Corporation Chairman and Managing Director Anil K. Lakhina
?There would be a complete change in the equations within the power sector in about 10 years when private companies were expected to generate about 60,000 MW of power. With this and the open access system of power trading, only those who could sell power at lower rates could survive as there would be a tough competition among power generators.
It is a retrograde development that the BJP’s Yeddyurappa would resort to?power populism for farmers in the run up to the assembly elections when the power sector in Karnataka is poised for a transformation.
An interesting innovation especially in the area of irrigation is a scheme for replacing the 16 lakh irrigation pumpsets with energy efficient pumps. This is expected to translate into financial savings of Rs. 550 crore to Rs. 750 crore a year. At present, the pumpsets account for 27 per cent to 30 per cent of the State?s power consumption. This story in The Hindu has more statistics as well as remarks by Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL) Managing Director Bharatlal Meena on the scheme. Of particular interest is this statistic
Irrigation pumpsets constitute an important segment of revenue loss suffered by the electricity supply companies. The pumpsets have been prescribed a tariff of 54 paise per unit as against the average price of Rs. 3.80. But the revenue recovery from irrigation pumpsets is less than 10 per cent,
Mr. Yeddyurappa’s populism on what is already a heavy subsidy with a poor track record of recovery?is in sharp contrast to Narendra Modi’s model in Gujarat which Yeddyurappa himself paid eulogies to,?back in March of 2006.
Promising a revolution in the power sector, Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said he would ensure that farmers received 24-hours power supply. He said he would soon lead a delegation to Gujarat to study power reforms undertaken in that State and implement the reforms to ensure at least 18 hours power supply was maintained in rural areas.
Offstumped Bottomline: The BJP’s yielding to power populism in Karanataka is a retrograde move. As the BJP prepares to build on the momentum from Narendra Modi’s victory in Gujarat it is disappointing to see the lessons from Gujarat discarded less than a month since the resounding win. If the BJP wants to get serious about winning in Karnataka it needs to project a strong leadership and a sound agenda. Yeddyurappa’s populism is hardly inspiring and could be a fatal mistake unless corrected.
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[...] Greg Alterton wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
[...] http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/01/14/karnataka-power-politics/#post-comments [...]
[...] Greg Alterton wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
This comment is divided into 3 parts:
1. The progressive (?) stateof Karnataka has a bagful of leaders like Deve ‘Farmer PM ‘ Gowda, HDK, HK Patel, Prakash, SM Krishna who are taking ‘politics’ to a level of Lowest Denominator which has hastened the down-fall to infinite vacuum.
2. Yediyurappa is further pulling the stature of the party down by announcing populist methods to bring back the mandate towards the BJP.
3. Here is your joke of the day :
Mr. H K Patel said, that he had received reports that Mr. Yediyurappa is praying in temples, not for power but that nobody should have a son like Mr. Kumaraswami.
(Meanwhile, Greg Alterton reminds me of an evanjehadist
)
Yes guys,
I am also very disappointed at this move. First of all, these are congress type politics. I dont get it as to why a party like BJP with a good central leadership is resorting to such measures. Is it like, they dont have any other chief ministerial candidate in karnataka. I dont like this guy yedurappa. Wish they project a stronger leader who is seen in good light. This guy may help BJP get some short term benefit for BJP in the south, but in the long term, its not going to be good for them. Advani and other top leaders shd do aomething abt this.
Murali
Disappointing
Well, it indeed is disappointing to read this. Although the BJP has a strong central leadership, it lacks strong leaders locally in Karnataka. I was in Bangalore for 4 years & the general opinion about Yeddyurappa is that he earns his respect largely due to his seniority in politics & nothing more. He hasn’t contributed in major respect. I also doubt he has the leadership forsight like say Modi to take his state forward. Most of the Karnataka leaders have sought to exploit the development in Bangalore & make hay while the sun shines there. There’s more of politics than anything else there. The recent history is more than ample proof of this.
Also, Yossarin, such populist measures are not in the national interest, or are they?
shishir – absolutely not in national interest.
M.P. Prakash in an interview to rediff made some perceptive remarks a while ago that Yeddy lacks the “intelligence” to govern. This appears to be further proof of it.
Going by the MSM hints the past few days, Congress in other parts on India is trying to emulate the Gujarat model, of course with their own spin. And here is Yeddy trying to play the age-old congress game of perpetual subsidies, consequently plunging many state departments into huge debt and impending privatisation to save them.
I am not against privatisation, but this is not the way to go. Free power to (farmers or) anybody is simply a selective entitlements issue and it shall and will be abused. Proper management, and minimizing the chance to manipulate the pumps, meters or billing is the way to go.
Examples:
1. APSEB (AP State Electricity Board) was hoarding huge losses from power theft and meter manipulation until they sourced their operations through AP Trans Co and AP Gen Co for Transmission and Generation respectively. Not majority of the people have their meters sealed locked up in boxes (which are outside of their homes). This made the way for transperancy and on the spot meter reading and billing. Once that happened, the most satisfied person was the ‘aam aadmi’. I can tell you having seen this first-hand.
2. Bharat Petroleum’s Bharat Gas was forced to remove most of its subsidies thereby increasing the cost of cooking LPG from about 150 Rs to nearly 350 Rs per cylinder in a short span of about 4 years or less. Currently the cost is even higher than that.
—-
BTW, Yeddy in Telugu means something close to “mentally retarded”.
Typo: It should read,
*Now majority of the people have their meters…
I have an offbeat view on this. What is the cost of preventing power theft by farmers? If its more than the cost of providing electricity for free, such populism is tolerable. Ofcourse the govt should bear the cost instead of making the electricity companies pay for the freebie.
Cost of preventing theft Vs providing free power? Is there a comparison? High school mathematics will tell you that you are dividing a number by zero, my friend.
When we say Government should bear the cost, who are the government? Who’s money is it?
Yours and mine. The above case is a plain and perfect case of encouraging freebies and votebank politics. India’s classical politician’s Ace card. The public should start rejecting this strategy some point or the other.
There is no justification for tax payer’s money to selectively benefit a particular section of the society.
1. To say that all farmers are poor and cannot pay for the electricity is wrong. Most farmers who do well are more landowners than the actual ones who toil in the fields. Free power holds all these rich people unaccountable.
2. And the government coffers are definitely not overflowing with excess money.
My solution would be something like this:
1. Create different sections of power usage categories/slabs/tiers. A farmer is given a choice to choose between them and decide how much his farmland needs, how much he will use and what rate he can pay. Lower load and higher load having different tariffs. What the government can really spend on, are installing power theft detection features and non-tamperable meters. This has been shown to have very positive long-term returns.
2. If a bigger land owner leases different sizes of land to multiple farmers, they (owners) can either pay bigger tariff for cumulative usage or instead, have different billing for different usages. will This way nobody (at least) pays higher than what they should and they can always be held accountable on paper.
3. Making the ground-level billing and collection employees accountable down the line is required and it has been implemented successfully. See http://www.businessworld.in/content/view/1769/1830/1/1/
My uncle works for Transco and at the end of every month, he is given a certain number like 3,00,000 Rs. This is what he is supposed to recover from all non-payers, whatever is his strategy. He has thus developed a good rapport with villagers where he goes for collections and explains them about how non-payment only leads to losses and increase in tariffs. He chooses 2-3 days in a month and sets up a temporary collection table in the village to clear all the dues. This has worked wonders, he says.
yadbh sounds like yeddi.
Yeddyurappa is no Modi. He will do to the BJP in karnataka what Kalyan singh and rajnath singh did to them in UP. That is a shame, because even with people like Modi and Advani, and the allegedly strong hold of the RSS ideologues, BJP is proving unable to learn from disasters.
There are challengers to Yeddyurappa in karnataka BJP. When JD-S betrayed BJP, Yeddyurappa used the caste angle in the betrayal to score over his opponents within the party. JD-S’s Gowdas are Vokkaliga caste, and Yeddyurappa is from the Lingayat caste. Both these castes appear to have a dominance in Karnataka – both these castes won ‘backward’ class status thru political muscle.
Rather than discussing Yeddyurappa, the focus should really be on the BJP leadership, and also RSS leadership, that allow their people to run amok with OBC politics. You should remember the generous seat sharing with ‘Apna Dal’ in UP and the disastrous results.
Reason – kalyan and rajnath were foisted by the high command. I dont believe in Yeddy’s case the high command has forced him. If his is the largest faction in Karnataka they have no choice but to yield to him. No point in foisting an anantha kumar if he does not have a majority following in karnataka. their best bet is to mentor Yeddy till the elections and force him out for non-performance a year or two later.
[...] BJP seems hell bent on taking a suicidal path in Karnataka. First it was the populism of free power and now it is the parochial politics of Cauvery water sharing. If Narendra Modi in Gujarat showed [...]
[...] BJP seems hell bent on taking a suicidal path in Karnataka. First it was the populism of free power and now it is the parochial politics of Cauvery water sharing. If Narendra Modi in Gujarat showed [...]
Yaddiyurappa is crazy. In the enthusiasm to win the elections and become the CM, he proved he does not hesitate to give false promises and cheat people. Otheriwise, how can he promises free power for Pumpsets or loans at 4 percent interest rate?
Senseless man without basic knowledge of economics nor politics, but expert in cheatings!
its very sad that the political parties are going to harm the nation for their own benifits.