Nothing electrifying

Apathy and corruption are hampering the promotion of solar power. The result, says BUNKER ROY, is that habitations across the country are without cheap and assured lighting and jobs. Time for a policy overhaul?

* * *

* Solar energy accounts for less than 0.1 per cent of total global primary energy demand.

* Of the global demand for solar photovoltaics, approximately 30 per cent is accounted for by Japan, 20 per cent by European countries and less than 10 per cent by the United States.

* Nearly 50 per cent of the world's cell production is manufactured in Japan, the U.S. is second with 25 per cent and Europe 20 per cent. Around 70 per cent of the U.S.'s production is exported.

* Approximately 45 per cent of the cost of a silicon cell solar module is driven by the cost of the silicon wafer, a further 35 per cent is driven by the materials required to assemble the solar module.

* Switzerland has more solar cells installed per person than any other country.

* Two billion people have no access to electricity. For most of them, solar photovoltaics would be their cheapest electricity source, but they cannot afford it.

* The U.S., Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Canada, were the world's five largest producers of energy in 1999, supplying 47.9 per cent of the world's total energy. Worldwide oil consumption rose by slightly less than one million barrels per day in 2000 versus 1999.

Source: Internet

* * *

THE mandate of the two- decade-old Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) is to promote and encourage the use of alternative sources of energy - bio-gas, wind power, micro-hydel and solar. Still considered to be an obscure ministry, the work it is supposed to be doing is of significance. But totally clueless about interacting and working with rural communities, it now needs a major overhaul.

Today, in terms of working with rural communities, the solar energy section of the MNES is a disaster, almost making sure that solar technology will never be in the hands of the people. Solar electrification of villages by and for the people has never had a chance over the last decade. Solar photovoltaic (SPV) units have been handed out by the thousands to non-existent people as a gift by disinterested, uninformed and corrupt officials in Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the North-East.

Moreover, the records of individuals supposedly maintained at various Renewable Energy Development Agencies (REDAs) are not available because they are incomplete and incorrect. An air of secrecy shrouds the ministry's working. There is no record available confirming which family in which State/district/census village (hamlet) has received a solar home lighting system and/or a solar lantern. This is because most names are fictitious.

To date, States have been given Rs. 5,000 crores. Targets are decided within the ministry based on a simple written demand. To Governments, 50 per cent of the money needed is given on the issue of the sanction letter by the MNES. At the end of the financial year on being informed, a list of beneficiaries is made ready and available on request (this list remains with the State Governments and is not compiled by the MNES), and the remaining 50 per cent is released. This has been going on for years. Unquestioned and loosely scrutinised, public money is going down the drain.

But for voluntary organisations, there is a different set of rules. Funds are released in four instalments. Even for organisations that have a better track record than most States, there is no relaxation to this rule. In 2000-2001, the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, was sanctioned Rs. 2.03 crores to install 2,500 home lighting systems and distribute 2,500 solar lanterns. How much the community would contribute was decided in consultation with the users, most of them living in remote villages. (Incidentally, it is a process no State Government believes in following.) But even after all the formalities and documentation were submitted to the MNES in time at the end of the financial year, only Rs. 30 lakhs was sanctioned. No explanation, no apology. Thousands of poor families suffered. For the remainder to be released, the list of beneficiaries with all the details would have to be sent to the Ministry to be verified. Only then would the amount be released. The college has no objection to being accountable but why not the State Governments?

An MNES document circulated as recently as 1999-2000 at the working group meeting (set up by the Planning Commission) states that the MNES has so far distributed 2,32,000 solar lanterns and installed 93,000 home lighting systems, 37,000 street lights and 4,500 solar pumps. Impressive, but where are they? How many have been lost, stolen, re-sold in the open market, broken and lying unused for want of repairs? The MNES does not want to know and certainly does not want the public to know.

At the click of a mouse we should be able to pinpoint where they are. The MNES should be glad to have the list checked and confirmed by the community, because non-conventional energy is one of the subjects in the 11th Schedule of the 73rd Amendment. But I suspect - and this is a conservative estimate giving the MNES the benefit of doubt - more than 60 per cent of the names on the list do not exist. All this is on paper and the MNES is afraid the process will expose a colossal scam. An analysis of what has been sanctioned in the last two years will give an indication of how the policies and directives of the Prime Minister have been flouted. He had issued a directive that alternative energy devices should be concentrated in high focus areas and priority should be accorded to backward, remote, desert, hilly, tribal, drought prone regions.

What do the MNES sanctions reveal? That the biggest States claiming to have the highest percentage of villages electrified by conventional means are receiving thousands of solar home lighting systems and lanterns. For instance, in 2000-2001, Haryana, a State that claims to be fully electrified, was sanctioned 5,000 solar lanterns and 4,000 home lighting systems. In 200l-2002, it received 5,000 Solar Lanterns and 3,500 home lighting systems (Rs. 2 crores of subsidies). This means that in the villages the MNES claims to be fully electrified, it is also distributing solar units. This seems to be true of other large States as well - Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, fully electrified, get Rs. 1.32 crores, 1,500 lanterns and Rs. 1 crore respectively; Karnataka, 99 per cent electrified, receives Rs. 1.60 crores and Bihar, which is 70 per cent electrified, has been sanctioned 8,000 solar lanterns and 1,000 lighting systems (Rs. 1.91 crore subsidies).

In 2001-2002, in contrast, Ladakh got only Rs. 39 lakhs, the Lakshadweep Islands Rs. 33 lakhs and the North-East received a negligible amount.

While the idea is that diesel generating sets be gradually replaced by solar photovoltaics to prevent pollution and severely limit the use of fossil fuels, it appears that the MNES is looking at it differently. And why not? Is it not supposed to make sure scarce resources are not wasted and that there is no duplication? Is it not supposed to apply its mind and minimise the colossal waste it is a party to? Is it not supposed to make sure that the poorest and the most remote non-electrified villages are covered first by non-conventional energy sources? Is it not bound to check that this is being done? If the MNES has not thought of this already, the Ministry is in worse shape than we had imagined.

As against an annual subsidy for conventional power touching Rs. 18,000 crores and the losses incurred by the State Electricity Boards amounting to a further Rs. 16,000 crores, the subsidy for solar energy (Rs. 2,000 crores) is a pittance. If remote non- electrified villages in the Himalayas are given priority, the cost of delivering a unit of power through solar energy, taking all hidden and invisible costs into account, will be much less than a conventional grid (without subsidy) where the costs range from Rs. 6 a unit to Rs. 12 a unit.

While there is the possibility of assured decentralised solar power for lighting reaching these remote villages (they are prepared to pay), there is also the advantage of creating jobs. Today, with over 1,00,000 villages still without basic lighting, more than 50,000 rural youth could be trained as "barefoot solar engineers". They then get paid a stipend from contributions collected from the community.

This has been happening for the past five years in Ladakh, where young people, self employed and rooted in the community, maintain the 60 solar units there.

For over five years, more than 2,000 houses in the remotest region of the world, where temperatures reach -30' C, receive three hours of solar powered light every day. These units are maintained by more than 15 barefoot solar engineers who have barely done six years of schooling. These villages have agreed to pay between Rs. 50 and Rs. 100 a month towards repair and maintenance. The community solution - tested, proven, workable and easily replicable - must be encouraged.

In contrast we have a system doomed to fail from the start. It is a system fully endorsed by the MNES, engineers and bureaucrats and fits closest to Einstein's definition of insanity - "Endlessly repeating the same process hoping for a different result" ... the process of a tender system, a centralised purchase policy going for the lowest rate, dumping units in a village and declaring it to be solar electrified. No training, no system of repair and maintenance, no consultation with the community at any stage and expecting a "maintenance contract" to take care of any solar units breaking down. It is a system that believes only technology is the answer and that the community has no role to play. This has done incalculable disservice to the cause of promoting solar energy and the responsibility lies totally and squarely with the MNES. The MNES cannot show ANY village in the country that has received individual home solar lighting systems and working for over five years following this system or where the community has paid regularly for the repair and maintenance of the units for five years. Yet we are following this process every year.

Members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee overseeing the management, relevance and function of the MNES are obviously not asking the right questions. Or it is possible that they have been kept in the dark because these are the issues that concern them. If they truly represent the people, they should make sure that the MNES is overhauled.

The issue of solar energy versus grid was raised in an article ("How many villages have light?") that appeared in the Sunday Magazine, The Hindu, issue dated April 29, 2001. In response, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission called for a meeting on June 13. He had just come back from Ladakh, and wanted an action plan for those that had not been electrified. He endorsed the "barefoot engineer" idea and said he would like the community-based approach to be followed on a larger scale in Ladakh. The MNES was asked to submit the plan within a week, after consultation with the Barefoot College.

But it was done otherwise. A draft plan should have been circulated at the meeting. At no stage was the college involved. Neither the Secretary, Planning Commission, nor the staff in the ministry were given a copy. Prior to this, a meeting was called at which the Army was present along with manufacturing companies, private contractors, the State Government and other REDAs. This is what the MNES calls community stakeholder consultation.

The plan for Ladakh now done by the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, after the MNES sidelined all the other players, is sure to fail. All previous flaws and shortsighted anti-community policies that have plagued the MNES stand out in the plan. The most serious of them all is the hostility towards the demystification of solar technology. The "barefoot" approach has always put the community first and technology second. Preparing the community, ownership and transparency of collective decision making, selection of a barefoot engineer by the ultimate users themselves and the issue of payment of how much each family is prepared to pay per unit has to be settled first: this is the hardware. The software, the easy part, is the installation. There is no mention of these issues in the plan. For the MNES, these are not issues.

The MNES has only made sure that Ladakh will suffer once more. The Deputy Chairman called for a plan in June. But till mid- August, funds had not been released and the road to Zanskar closes by September - mid- October. Some 500 solar units are ready for Zanskar, but the Government appears non-chalant.

The Government must find the courage to put the solar section of the MNES in order. Heads must roll if it wants to show it is serious about encouraging the use of solar energy.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Teaching, the 'IT' way
Next     : Nutritious green