The Taste of Power Sector

Ravi got up early in the morning, though he wanted to sleep more. Wiping his sweat from his forehead with his index finger, he looked at the ceiling fan and then at the air-conditioner fixed on one of the windows of the bedroom. "What use are they?" he asked himself.





Well, he was irritated. The cause of his bad mood was the power. It left him sometime after midnight without giving him any notice. As a result, the air-conditioner and ceiling fan had stopped. The temperature inside the room slowly went up in tune with the prevailing heat in the atmosphere. It pricked his senses. The discomfort woke him up. Ravi looked at his wrist watch. It was a little over 2 a.m. "Too early, to begin the day," he told himself. He prayed to power sector.





The rest of the night was spent hoping against the hope. He counted minutes, which swelled into hour. But his prayers weren’t answered. In that moment of hopelessness, Ravi wondered, why can’t the power sector have some kind of calendar of on-offs, similar to calendar of months. A glance at a calendar gives the picture of the seasons of a year. The months, as one flips, through the pages, tell when it would be cold, warm or hot. Accordingly, the cloths are chosen and kept in a wardrobe to make life comfortable. Why the power sector can’t offer something predictable despite paying on time? Ravi’s wish-list is probably everyone’s minimum expectation from the companies, which produce and distribute electricity.





The human mind has evolved. But why then summer continues to be cruel? Who could save from sleepless nights? Why can’t the technology do something? These thoughts circled in his mind. He remembered a power sector report. It stated that despite the availability of large reserves of coal, domestic companies’ inclination and global investors’ interests, the sector is in dire need of strategic knowledge and insight to recharge itself. Then only it could serve the needs of other sectors of the economy.





The role of electricity in driving India’s economy is obvious. From pump sets irrigating agriculture lands to air-conditioners in plush homes in metropolitan cities to manufacturing units producing goods across the country, the availability of electricity is a necessity. But the demand has surpassed supply with the phenomenal rise in population, rapid urbanization and love for western model of growth, asserts a power sector analyst. Because of shortage of power, many manufacturing companies have resorted to setting up of their own captive power generating units. The individual homes or a group of homes have taken recourse to buying small to medium power generation sets.





One may say, these are all natural evolution. Where there’s block, there’s bypass. The private production of electricity doesn’t use electricity from the grid. But it uses diesel as fuel. The production of such electricity has led to global warming. The climate, as a result, has changed in many places. The winters have become short and warmer, and the summers long, hot and sultry. How do we manage the contradiction?





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