K.P. Kannan (Centre for Development Studies) N. Vijayaymohanan Pillai (Centre for Development Studies)
Abstract
The present study is an attempt at a detailed diagnosis of the accumulated inefficiency in the Indian power sector, the consequent reform drives, and the political economy involved in these aspects. The discussion in the wider canvas of the national scenario is substantiated by focusing on the Kerala power sector, taken for illustrative purpose. It is shown that much of the capacity/energy deficit we experience today could be easily avoided with some achievable functional improvement in the power sector. We also estimate, on some very plausible assumptions, the avoidable cost of inefficiency at a few amenable functional levels and find it to represent about one-third of the reported cost of electricity supply in India in 1997-98! Given such scope for cost reduction, the attempts at tariff hikes amount to transferring the inefficiency onto the customers. Based on these observations, we argue that the present system predicament is due to problems that are just internal to the system. This then implies that there do remain sufficient quarters for remedial exercises, meant to remove the problems that stand in the way of the SEBs' improved performance. In other words, what the system badly requires is essence-specific reforms, not structure-specific ones. We hence question the (unfounded) logic of the structural reform in the sector now posited as the panacea. We also list out a number of feasible suggestions for the improved performance of the sector, in the context of Kerala.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.