Its Impact on the Economy of the State
Based on the data of per capita power consumption in the country we judge the standard of living of the people of the particular country/state. Today the availability of power is a must for survival of our society. Power is going to play vital role for livelihood of the people of the country. It has become essential like oxygen in the air for the survival of human life in the world today. If you do not get oxygen for 3 to 5 minutes, we die immediately. Similarly in future if you do not have power for hours together it will be impossible to run the industry or computer or any electrical appliances and it will be difficult to sleep and get quality drinking water even.
At present in Bihar due to the shortage of power and non-availability of power generation within the state sector, the backwardness and poverty is increasing day by day. It needs to be looked into on war footing basis failing which the condition of the state will go from bad to worse. Today in the society, in absence of power you cannot have proper sleep in the night and you cannot expect to get quality water for drinking. Under such circumstances attack of various diseases on the body of human beings cannot be avoided and growth of agricultural sector and industrial sector is getting affected adversely. The Bihari engineers and all other technically qualified Diploma holders and fitters have capability of world class. They have proven their excellence in any part of the world but I am sorry to mention that their expertise is not being exploited properly within the state to remove shortage of power which is causing backwardness of Bihar. Everybody in the world is astonishing to see such situation since last 60 years in Bihar. It is a state which was considered to be one of the best and prosperous state before independence. The land of Bihar and talent of Bihar is considered as excellent in the country but it is unfortunate that Bihar is not developed and is being considered as one of the most backward state. Unless we develop our resources and maximize the power generation and improve our power distribution system things will not improve.
Under the circumstances mentioned above I suggest that the power projects under construction should be completed on war footing. For completion of the power projects the services of all professionals available in the state should be deployed immediately in order to complete the projects whether it is in the state sector, central sector or private sector project.
The environment and resettlement issues should be sorted out with legal empowerment by adopting a fair method for all through a committee of experts in minimum possible time. Any power project whether it is thermal or hydro which will now be started cannot be completed in less than 4 to 5 years time even Government gives all full time support. As such under these circumstances efforts should be made to get allocation of sufficient gas from Government of India so that gas power projects could be got completed in 1-1/2 years time without considering the cost of gas to meet the emergency. The losses on account of stoppage of work in industries and other sectors will be much costlier than the cost of gas power project. Though getting adequate gas for power generation at present will be difficult but with the help of Government of India adequate quantity of gas for Bihar could be arranged to meet the immediate requirement. All the old projects which are to be renovated and modernized can also be completed within two years time provided work is done round the clock and funds are made available to Electricity Boards.
If we do not work as suggested above a dramatic economy slow down of Bihar cannot be stopped and it will be affecting the GDP growth of the state adversely and it will cause huge unemployment in the state.
As per present grid code the frequency of power supply has to be maintained between 49.7 HZ to 50.2 HZ. Beyond this limit it will not be safe to run existing power plants and provide quality power to the people of the state. At present we have almost minimum hydro in Bihar, hence the gas power project is a technical compulsion for Bihar. The power distribution system in the state also needs to be improved at the earliest. Unless all these suggestions are considered we cannot dream of development in Bihar in future. Immediate attention is required to boost power generation of the state.