“Gujarat has shown us the way”… Says P.Chidambaram !!
વાંચો ગુજરાતીમા(Read in Gujarati)ં: ચિદમ્બરમે કેમ ગુજરાતને પથદર્શક કહેવુ પડ્યું?
Ahmedabad, DeshGujarat
Congress lead UPA government’s finance minister shri P.Chidambaram has praised Gujarat’s agriculture power policy in his interview with Tehelka magazine. He said in this interview “Gujarat has shown us the way on how to fix power for agriculture” Here is a link for that full interview. A paragraph where Gujarat was mentioned is given above as a photo image.
So what is Gujarat’s agriculture power policy that can be a pathway for the entire nation as per what P. Chidambaram said? Answer of this question is very well defined by noted economist Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyer in his recent article dated 11th of May, 2008 in Times of India.
Read Gujarat related part of that article here in which Swaminathan wrote about uniqueness of Gujarat’s Agricultural power arena: “Competition between political parties has driven rural power rates towards zero. Chandrababu Naidu’s defeat in 2004 was widely ascribed to his charging farmers for power. Yet, Narendra Modi also charged farmers, cut off connections for non-payment, and yet won a big victory in 2007. Power reforms can win votes if properly designed.
Where power is free, it is viewed by State Electricity Boards (SEBs) as a political gimmick, not a commercial matter. So, they neglect rural distribution, supplying low-voltage power that burns out farmers’ pumps and SEB transformers (which are not replaced for months, leaving villages in darkness). Power is supplied erratically for a few hours, mostly at night. Hence, villages cannot develop manufacturing or service industries that need power in the day. So, both agriculture and non-farm activities remain caught in a low-productivity trap.
Gujarat’s Jyotigram has separate electric feeder lines for each village, a heavy-duty one for tubewells and a light-duty one for domestic use and small-scale manufacturing and services. This dual-feeder system requires high upfront investment. But it enables SEBs to ration power intelligently. Villages get power 24/7 for nonagricultural purposes, enhancing domestic and commercial possibilities. But tubewell power is rationed for eight hours, providing enough water for crops but saving aquifers from over-pumping. Villagers are willing to pay, and the Gujarat SEB is one of the few profitable ones.
Power supply should be adjusted for seasonal demand. It could be provided continuously in the 30-40 days of maximum moisture stress, but for only three-four hours at night on other days.
Power plants have idle capacity at night, so generating cost equals just fuel cost. Hence, even the low rural power rate in Gujarat looks economic to the SEB, which now views rural power as a potential profit centre, not a bottomless pit. Naturally, such an SEB will seek to maintain and expand rural power, while SEBs in free-power states will neglect it.
Although groundwater irrigates three-four times as much land as canals, SEBs typically have no agricultural orientation: they are attuned to industrial needs. Jyotigram shows how reforms can help power engineers develop an agricultural focus, and respond to farm needs.”
So, in nutshell this is the scenario of Gujarat pathway which India’s finance minister wants to follow. That’s it. Deserving appraisals are coming from all directions. In east Buddhadev Bhattacharya praises Gujarat’s development, in north P.Chidambaram, in south Jaylalitha and Cho ramaswamy, on international front when recently Japanese delegation visited Delhi they praised Gujarat’s development in India … Who cares about what leaders of Gujarat Congress bark here and there in corners of Gujarat because of their political compulsions and survival!!
May 24th, 2008 at 10:16 am
|| JAI SHREE KRISHNA ||
“Gujarat has shown us the way”… Says P.Chidambaram !!
Dheere dheere desh na congressi (indian muslim leeg) ane khaash karine Left-CPM (Communists) khabar padshe ke fakta muslim-tustikaran, aatankwaadi-tustikaran, ane anti-hindu niti thi desh na chaali sake…….
future ma congressi ane CPM ni haalat khoob kharab thavani chhe……teni saruwaat west bangaal ni graam-panchayat ane jeela-panchayat na parinaam thi thai chuki chhe…..
jem jem loko ne nehru thi sonya ni anti-hindu niti ni jaan thashe tem tem UPA nest naabud thai jashe ane teni saruwaat thai chuki chhe…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXFWd5i2Eps&feature=related
|| JAI SHREE KRISHNA ||
May 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Superb. finally all will have to say this.
May 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
We want Modi in Maharashtra. Please, we need to be saved from bad politicians and administration here.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
This is an awesome news. Ek cogressi na modhe saachi vaat sambhalta aashcharya thayu. Pan satya ne kon chhupavi shake…
May 24th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Gujarat is an engine of India for growth prosperity and development.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Aaj ka Gujarat Kal ka Bharat. Gujarat je aaje kare che Desh te kale karse. Narendra Modiji aage badho.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
From http://guj-epd.gov.in/epd_jyotiyojna.htm
What is Jyotigram yojana (JGY)
JYOTI GRAM YOJANA is a scheme announced by Government of Gujarat to provide continuous three phase power supply to the Rural area for upliftment of Rural population.
The quality of villagers life had affected due to non availability of power supply in rural area. This in turn had affected the villages in development of Education, Industries, Business, Health Services etc.
By providing 24 Hrs. power to rural area all round development of State can be achieved.
JGY scheme envisaged making the life of millions of village people happier, progressive and prosperous by ensuring quality power supply.
Disparities in availability of power supply between rural and city area though tariff is same will be eliminated.
Benefits due to Jyoti Gram Yojana are
1. More opportunity of Local employment
2. Development of cottage/home industries & small scale industries
3. Provide better health services & infrastructure facility
4. The power supply will be available to villagers at the most needy time i e. the morning & evening hrs. also.
5. Will help student for computer education & for preparing for other examination
6. Housewives can use electrical appliances like, grinder, mixers, fridge, etc. and can save time for other activities for their upliftment.
7. Entertainment with TV, VCR, VCD & local/ national/inter national news can uplift the village environment.
8. Will help the local dairy & milk testing process
9. Will improve the life standards of villagers
10. Migration from Rural to Urban area will be reduced
Norms of the scheme
1. It includes a registration fee Rs. 1000/- for a village Panchayat who wants to take the benefits of JGY.
2. The village Panchayat has to pay 30% of the estimate cost or Rs. 25000/- whichever is more as contribution towards JGY& balance 70% is met by Govt. of Gujarat.
3. 11th central finance commission (EFC) will by providing grant up to 75% of estimated cost of feeder and rest 25% will be given by GOG under this scheme @ 700 nos. of villages would be covered during 2004-2005.
4. In the Mahesana, Sabarkanth, Banaskantha, Patan, Kutchh, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surendranagar districts villages are covered under JGY scheme without insisting 30% contribution from village panchayat
Achievement and progress
In the year 2003-2004 2516 villages were covered under scheme and an amount of 72.18 crores was provided. During the year 2004-2005 budget provision of Rs. 257.15 crores is made and till march-2005 6203 Nos. of villages are covered.
During the current year 2007-08, up to March -2007, there were 17826 Nos. of villages declared as Jyotigram villages.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:00 am
VIVA GUJARAT
May 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Here are Jyotigram related videos.
Part.1
Part.2
May 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
This is Ashok Malik’s article in India’s only right wing english daily PINOEER
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=ASHOK60.txt&writer=ASHOK&validit=yes
Modi power in Gujarat
Why Narendra Modi believes his power reforms combine economic sense with political sensibility
Ever since N Chandrababu Naidu was trounced in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly election of 2004, reformist Chief Ministers have come to be seen as a politically endangered species. Good economics, it is said, is electorally suicidal. It makes sense in the cities but leaves the rural masses cold.
Can this cosy conventional wisdom be challenged? Mr Narendra Modi thinks so. The man who is perhaps India’s best-known Chief Minister believes he has found the golden mean. As a case in point, he refers to the power sector, where integral to his reform process is assured electricity to the farmer.
Gujarat has an installed capacity of 9,700 MW - the figure includes its share of Central power projects - but a peak demand of 11,000 MW. There is a clear shortfall, yet there are no complaining throngs, no long power cuts, no benighted villages. This has happened despite no significant augmentation in power generation. What is Gujarat’s secret?
“It’s a simple idea,” says Mr Balwant Singh, Principal Secretary, Energy and Petrochemicals Ministry, “in fact, once it was conceived, we wondered why nobody had thought of it earlier.” He refers to the Jyotigram Yojana, a scheme that was launched in September 2003 and has reached almost universal coverage in Gujarat’s 18,000 villages.
Before Jyotigram, farmers and domestic users in villages were supplied electricity through a common feeder. This meant that if a farmer “broke discipline” - to use Mr Singh’s expression - and decided to use his pump to draw water when he wasn’t supposed to, the whole village was rendered dark.
Under Jyotigram, separate feeders are provided for agriculturalists and domestic users. The village gets three-phase power for 24 hours, the farm single-phase. Indiscipline or overdrawing in one area will not affect the other.
Consider what this has done to the rural economy. Offered a power guarantee for a certain number of hours every day, farmers are more confident of meeting irrigation needs, and less likely to resort to unfair practices or “stealing electricity”.
For the village community, 24-hour, three-phase connections have meant an enhancement in both “quantity” and “quality” (frequency, voltage) of power. This has inspired the confidence to move semi-skilled jobs to the rural hinterland. In some Gujarati villages, houses double as diamond cutting units or as mini-hubs for IT-based services. Of course, the manpower available is limited but, where it is there, outsourcing to the village means huge savings for urban clients.
What this also means is Gujarati village consumers are paying higher bills, simply because they are using more electricity. For the State power utilities it translates into more revenue.
“The total investment for Jyotigram, primarily for conversion of single-phase to three-phase, was Rs 1,500 crore,” says Mr Singh, “in village after village, the pay-back period, the time for recovery of investment, has been between one year and two-and-a-half years.”
Despite the success of Jyotigram, Gujarat’s bureaucrats say they are acutely conscious of the limits of deft management. “With the kind of industrial investment promised in the State,” says a senior civil servant, “with the promise of Rs 461,000 crore in the recent Vibrant Gujarat Summit, we will need to generate more power. No question.”
This is where the second, more conventional segment of Mr Modi’s power reforms comes in - a China-type capacity super-expansion. It is estimated that by 2012, Gujarat’s peak-hour demand will reach 14,000 MW. Other than expanding State Government owned plants, a flurry of MoUs has been signed with private players, from Torrent and Adani to Videocon and China Light and Power, the company that lights up Hong Kong. Land sites are being pointed to and clearances offered freely.
The State is judiciously using its locational advantage. Along India’s western coast, it is sometimes economically viable to set up a power station using Indonesian coal. Gujarat is poised to reap the benefit.
The Union Government has given Tata Power the contract to execute a 4,000 MW ultra mega-power project in Mundhra (Kutch) and the Tatas are expected to ship in Indonesian coal. Gujarat will get 1,900 MW. The same formula had the State Government drawing up a series of project profiles for 1,000-2,000 MW plants and hawking them at Vibrant Gujarat.
“We have created a land bank for coastal power plants, prepared project profiles establishing how imported coal could be cheaper and signed MoUs for 15,000 MW,” says a senior Government official, adding, “there is potential for much more.” Reliance Energy is said to be looking at one such proposal.
Gujarat’s big power statement is, of course, the 6,000 MW plant that is going to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation in Mithivirdi, Bhavnagar. A combination of Indian uranium and Indonesian coal, of Chinese investment and Gujarati enterprise, is set up make Gujarat a net exporter of power in the next three or four years.
It all began, of course, in the village that Jyotigram lit. Will it generate votes for Mr Modi too?
May 26th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Presentation of Jyotigram in PPT-HTML
http://darpg.nic.in/arpg-website/Conference/Pune/Excellence%2005%5B1%5D.10%20PHRm.ppt.