Sexy Jihad

The good old BBC has an eye opening piece on India’s current electricity predicament:

Slum dwellers’ unofficial hook-ups are the most visible sign of India’s power theft crisis, but there are yet bigger problems dogging the country’s energy sector.

Meter tampering by middle class households seeking to pay less than they should costs still more, says Sangeta Robinson, an official with local utility North Delhi Power Limited, a subsidiary of energy giant Tata Power.

And yet another huge loss - albeit one which no-one can quantify - is electricity theft by industrial enterprises.

Giresh Sant, who works for an NGO called Prayas campaigning for more efficient and accountable government, says the problem is one of corruption - and a vested electoral interest in turning a blind eye.

No-one likes paying their utility bills, he says, so often politicians regard laxness about revenue collection as a vote-winner.

And opportunities for personal enrichment through corruption related to industrial power theft have given them, as well as civil servants and utility officials, further incentives not to rock the boat.

The political aspect is probably most blatant in rural areas.

At least 20% of India’s power is consumed by farmers’ irrigation systems. Frequently they either get free power or pay low set charges that bear no relation to the amount of electricity used.

The powerful farmers’ lobby is hard for politicians to ignore in country where a majority of the population still makes its living from agriculture.

However my favourite piece of the article is this:

If the current 8% growth rate continues, India’s energy planners reckon generating capacity will need to expand sevenfold over the next 25 years - and that means as much as $300bn on new power stations and transmission lines.

Meanwhile, power theft means most of India’s state run electricity companies are close to bankruptcy, collectively losing $4.5bn a year.

You don’t have to be Einstein to see that this will cause major problems for India in the future. Also for a lot of other thirld world countries where corruption is the norm, and poor people just can’t afford electricity. Before people start campaigning for a computer in every home, they should probably figure out how to get people connected to the electricity grid first.

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