Every night, in his two-room mud-and brick house, Khan’s family of seven eats by the light of a kerosene lantern carefully set low so that the flame lasts for seven minutes. This is all the time the tribal family gets to finish dinner. His son Shahid Ali Khan, a Class 10 student, uses the centuries- old technique of burning carefully selected dried roots of deodar or pine trees locally called lachi. And a small gap in the timber ceiling is the only escape for the smoke once it has blackened the insides of their lungs and kitchen.
Andervan, a tiny village of about 50 Gujjar families nestled amid the lush Kachwaan mountains and Akingam hillock, not far from south Kashmir’s famous tourist spot Achabal, is just another heart of Kashmir’s darkness. This village hasn’t seen electricity despite 64 years of Indian independence.
Children are taught to study and play in the dark. Women, lanterns in hand, carry headloads of water over long distances through maize fields despite danger of monkey and bear attacks. In 2008, Andervan — which falls in the constituency of Education Minister Peerzada Mohammad Syed — had exploded in joy.
Electrifying the village was a key promise during election rallies. But to this day, students continue to imperil their eyesight with firewood smoke.
It’s not only Andervan: lack of power and erratic supply have been a constant cause of simmering discontent among people across the state. In fact, during the 2010 unrest, one of the unlikely grievances mentioned by stone-throwing youth was ‘theft’ of power by Government of India enterprise National Hydroelectric Power
Corporation (NHPC).
That’s because it shares only 12 percent of the total power generated from the roar of J&K’s rivers with the state and sells the rest to the wider Northern Grid for other states. At peak hours, according to government officials, NHPC sells the same power to the state at exorbitant rates of Rs 8-12 per unit while spending only around Rs 60 paise to generate a power unit.
Power is increasingly becoming the second big issue in Kashmir after the decades-old conflict. Despite capacity of producing over 20,000 MW of power, only 2,456 MW have been harnessed so far, mostly by the NHPC, which is currently working on 14 more power projects with a total capacity of 3,445 MW.
Of late, ear-splitting voices have been raised over the issue of power in an energy deficit state whose power ambitions started in the 1970s but faced two hurdles. One was the controversial deal with NHPC — a corporation that a senior Congress leader equates with the East India Company, “sucking all electricity” generated on J&K’s waters.
And the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan over sharing the water originating from J&K which is seen as ‘discriminatory’ towards the state. This treaty prohibits the state from damming rivers flowing down to Pakistan, which could have been otherwise used to generate thousands of megawatts.
The mystery over why NHPC shares only 12 percent of power generated in J&K to the energy-starved state and not more than that was recently unearthed by the powerful Congress leader and the state’s Minister for Public Health Engineering, Irrigation and Flood Control, Taj Mohiuddin when he got J&K Water Resources (Regulation and Management) Bill 2010 passed in the Assembly. The legislation requires the power-generating companies (state, Centre or private consortium owned) to pay for the water used for generating electricity.
“When NHPC applied for registering their projects and licence to use water, I stumbled on their application that said the corporation has ownership rights on all hydroelectric power projects, especially the Salal project. This was a shocker. How could they own these projects, that too without any agreement about holding of land on lease basis?” Mohiuddin said.
The minister soon set to digging up the history of the 690 MW Salal project on Chenab river in Jammu region. According to Cabinet decision 537 taken on 15 December 1980 the state Cabinet had conveyed to the Centre that in the Salal project, J&K will have a 50 percent share of the power generation and half of the profits it makes. Both sides will review the power requirements of J&K after every five years. The project was supposed to be returned to the state government after the depreciation period against a payment of 10 percent of the project cost in accordance with the J&K Electricity Supply Act, 1971.
Before that, the conditions of the engagement (as per Cabinet decision No. 128) were conveyed to the Union power ministry vide letter No PD-IV/243/72 on 21 July 1975, following which the work on the project started.
But NHPC in its communication to the PHE department (NH/SPS/GMO/DB- 6/2011/2486-88 on 7 June this year) categorically denied having ever entered into any such agreement by stating, “The corporation is executing the power projects in Jammu and Kashmir under Indian sovereignty and that the Union of India was enjoying sovereign power over the land and waters of J&K. In view of the above, the ownership of Salal lies with NHPC.”
“The project got fully depreciated in 2003 but was not handed over. The power share of 50 percent was never respected. Same is the case with Dulhasti, Uri and other power projects too. This is the main reason why the state reels in the dark despite abundant resources to generate power,” says Mohiuddin, adding, “My remark that the NHPC is like the East India Company in Kashmir whose 55 percent of the total revenue comes from the J&K state only isn’t wrong.”
According to existing laws, only permanent residents of the state can hold land titles — others can only take a lease. NHPC, according to Mohiuddin, has failed to produce any document that could justify its occupation of land for Salal (almost 624.42 acres) and other projects. “There is no order regarding the land lease and for how much time NHPC will be allowed to keep the thousands of kanals (1 kanal=5,440 sq ft) under its possession,” the minister says.
This has triggered fears that misplacement of records means losses suffered by J&K are more than Rs 10,000 crore — the value of energy generated by the Salal project every year for the past three decades.
Stung by the revelations, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah soon nominated a Cabinet sub-committee comprising several ministers who are studying the issue of transferring all power projects from NHPC. This includes the 690 MW Salal, 390 MW Dul Hasti, 480 MWUri-I and 120 MWSewa, 45 MW Chutak and 44 MW Nimo Bazgo.
(http://tehelka.com)
