Imkong Walling
Energy is elementary for development - industrial growth in particular. No civilisation can afford to ignore this aspect in the developmental trajectories.
With that in context, it would be interesting to introspect on how Nagaland has fared in the energy (read electricity) sector. It has brought artificial lighting to homes and facilitated greater access to modern day comforts while making life more convenient as compared to the days of yore. Fair enough, isn’t it?
Go a bit deeper and there is not much to boast of; the state’s achievement in the energy front has been concentrated largely on domestic lighting and rarely to power big industry. Dissected further, whatever the state has achieved by bringing power lines to all the recognised villages and towns has been diluted by a failure to maintain a steady supply.
The causes and reasons are many – fund constraints, power theft, unrealised dues, ageing infrastructure, governmental apathy, slack checks and balances, insurgency and so on.
In the midst of it all, governmental apathy for one rears as the usual suspect quite unfailingly. Not for once has the augmentation of the power sector featured prominently in the many Nagaland Legislative Assembly sessions witnessed over the years.
While successive governments have harped on making the environment and available infrastructure conducive to investment from the private sector, none has mustered enough commitment to make available the basics, chief among the needs being electricity supply stable enough as to sustain big industry.
Planting the prerequisites necessitate sustained governmental funding, which seldom has been the case. State budgetary allocation to the power sector has drastically reduced over the past ten years, failing to meet yearly projected requirements.
The failure to meet the monetary requirement, according to the Power department, would only result in greater wear and tear on equipments, further doubling upkeep expenses over time.
Budgetary allocation over the past three years would stand as a fair example of the government’s perceived commitment to the power sector. It was Rs. 7cr in 2015-16, Rs. 12cr in 2016-17 and Rs. 9.8cr in 2017-18. Declining investment on power has only cast aspersions on the state government’s declared objective to industrialise Nagaland.
The maiden session of the 13th NLA was no different. Electricity was hardly a moot point. Whatever that was spoken of was limited to broad terminology without specifics and the Chief Minister-cum-Finance Minister calling for observing ‘Earth Hour’ on March 24, 2018 from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm.
The appeal may hold great significance symbolically; on the other hand, it loses weightage taking into account the ‘current’ state of affairs.
Meanwhile, the departmental level remains mired in lamentations. “Power sector is the most neglected sector in the state” is an oft repeated refrain among department engineers. Shortage of field personnel, mounting dues to suppliers, revenue collection falling way short of the spending on power purchase, scarcity of spares etc. being the familiar complaints overheard.
Apprehension of something going wrong, most likely, the spectre of an ageing distribution transformer conking out somewhere is what weighs in every department official’s mind, including the consumers every summer. Political power is what policy-makers seek but when it comes to electricity as power, the corridors of power goes mute.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
