When it comes to claims of electrification in India, there appears to be a classic case of governmental smoke and mirrors, aimed at political goals. The government’s pronouncements consist of heavy doses of hyperbole and back-slapping, while many millions of Indians in the country of 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity or only sketchy power supplies.
India is a largely rural country, making it difficult to supply electricity to the many small towns and villages. Last April, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced, 12 days ahead of a self-proclaimed government deadline, that all of the country’s villages had been electrified. Reuters commented that the announcement “could give the ruling party a boost ahead of a general election in 2019.”
Modi announced on April 28 that the connection of the remote village of Leisang in the northeastern state of Manipur completed the interconnection of all 18,452 villages to the national grid.
India’s electrification goals are ambitious, and the country has enormous generating capacity, estimated at 354 GW. That figure has grown substantially in the past 7 years, when a Brookings Institute put it at about 180 GW. But the country now faces a problem of overcapacity and under deliverability.
An analysis in October by economist Ritesh Kumar Singh, former assistant director of the Finance Commission of India, commented, “Power producers sit on thousands of megawatts of underutilized plants, while consumers face frequent power cuts, both planned and unplanned.” As one who has traveled extensively in India, that comment about power cuts is spot on.
Singh added, “Financially troubled generators struggle to escape insolvency proceedings. The state-owned banks that have mostly financed power utilities fear that debts of trouble utilities totaling 1.74 trillion rupees will soon go bad.”
India has copious coal deposits and coal-fired generation accounts for 90% of the thermal electric output and, according to Singh, “the bulk of the financially distressed generators.” They face competition from “highly subsidized renewables (which also benefit from falling solar panel costs), coal shortages and weak demand.”
As for the claim that India’s villages are now totally connected to the grid, Bloomberg reports this week, “15 million Indian households have meters but no electricity.” The article quotes a villager in Uttar Predesh, “My meter was installed on April 27, 2018 [the day before Modi’s announcement of 100% grid connecton]. I have no idea when the electricity connectionwill reach here.”
Modi bragged about connecting Leisang as the “last village to be electrified,” but Bloomberg reported separately this week that the village has lapsed into darkness. “At dusk set in on April 28, 2018, on this lush, remote village, a much-anticipated moment finally arrived – electric light bulbs lit up the dark, as whistles and shots of joy accompanied the peal of the local church bell.”
That was a premature celebration. A village authority told the reporters, “Since then, the line [has been] erratic. In the initial days when several media persons thronged the village, we used to get about four hours of electricity, and then the hours dwindled to minutes.”
— Kennedy Maize