दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

I know you had and have a tough job in hand. Some of the actions are certainly changing the perception of the outsiders about Bihar. However, Bihar requires some fast track action plans that can make as quick an impact in development as you claim to have achieved in law and order situation in the state. Media have less news about kidnappings. Many of the political parties backed dons are behind the bars and have been convicted too.

Bihar must do something drastic about educating and skilling its younger people, who are to join the workforce. Every village has some retired teachers and persons from the defence forces in Bihar. I suggest using the services of these people who already get paid pensions from the government.

Can’t you request and push all the retired teachers from the villages to attach themselves with the schools of their locality to get their pensions? Let them help in covering up the absenteeism of regular teachers, coaching the students that are weaker than the average particularly those from deprived classes, or initiating adult education in evening shift. Let them be actively associated with ‘sarva sikhsha abhiyan’ in real sense of the term. I am sure your appeal will matter.

As I have observed most of the rural schools are away from the habitation. Will it not be better if at least it is provided with at least residential facility for some teachers and students? Can’t other buildings in government plan of action such as ‘panchayat’ house or knowledge center be constructed in proximity? I am sure you must be planning to provide the facility of computer with Internet also in these schools. Let one teacher from the school get trained in computer on his own and once qualified be paid extra. Let him get a website for the school and help in online teaching that will be the solution to have equity in quality of teaching and education.

Please get one creativity center attached to each of these schools. It will not require very high investment.

Let the teachers of the rural schools be motivated to involve the students in yoga, sports and games seriously. If properly executed it will reduce the drop out problem almost in similar manner as the mid-day meal. The retired defence persons will be able to take up this assignment happily. (They can also be of help in manning he creativity center. Don’t you agree that even with the material available around the school from the fields, the students can learn about horticulture and floriculture or even making terracotta figurines? Will some paint and brushes be so costly that the school or the students can’t afford?)

Please appeal in all your ‘durbaar’ to the people from the rural Bihar to send their children to school and see that they continue education. Today, it has become very easy to make oneself employable. Just a good communication skill gets a pretty respectable job. And it is easy to master it with the digital equipment and readily available course materials even without teachers. Many Dalits have proven that. Some crooks are still exploiting people in rural area. It is necessary to communicate all the government offerings to them through various means.

I wish again if you can use the services of ‘Pratham’ to the best and outsource the inspection of the schools to it and thereby eliminate the department of school inspection.

Please make some fast track changes in education sector of the state. That can be the strength of the state and so its differential factor.

As confessed in Economic Survey as well as Budget 2008, the growth of power generation has always been lower than the targeted growth rate. Lack of availability of quality electric power has been one of the major reasons for poor industrial growth. The target for 2007-08 was fixed at 12,039 MW, of which 7,263 MW has been commissioned up to January 31, 2007. The total capacity addition during the current financial year would be 10,821.8 MW. A capacity addition of 78,577 MW has been proposed for the Eleventh Five Year Plan. It translates into a growth rate of 9.5 per cent per annum. Will it happen?

The deficit in power supply in terms of peak availability and of total energy availability during the current year was still 14.8 per cent and 8.4 per cent, respectively. However, the PLF (power load factor), a measure of efficiency has improved over time in the sector as well as in all regions. To improve PLF further, new thermal power plants are changing to super-critical technology from sub-critical ones. The Government is also going for coal-based Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs), each with a capacity of 4,000 MW or above either at pithead sites or at coastal sites envisaged with imported coal. Tata Power and Reliance Power have bagged Sasan, Mundra and Krishnapatnam UMPPs.

India has an estimated hydro power potential of more than 1,50,000 MW. However, only 21.14 per cent of the potential has been developed till date and 9.53 per cent is being developed. Private sector participation that was negligible till recently has been increasing in the recent past. 10 Schemes with an installed capacity of 3991 MW are under construction while States have allotted 67 Schemes with an installed capacity of 18,030 MW to private developers.

A new initiative of Merchant Power Plants (MPPs) is also under consideration. Merchant Power Plants fill different niches in the market; some provide steady supplies to the power grid, while others fire up to meet peak loads when the demand is at its highest.

And what is happening on power generation front all over the country? Some news reports provide hope, because of its breadths:

Tata Power, India’s third-biggest utility by value, will spend Rs 17,000 crore ($4.2 billion) on a plant at Mundra in Gujarat to generate 4,000 mw of electricity. Tata Power has tied up Rs3,115 crore debt to develop a 1,050 Mw coal- based power project in Jharkhand.

Reliance Power is expecting necessary clearances from the governments within 90 days for its 4,000 Mw Sasan ultra mega power project (UMPP) in Madhya Pradesh and plans to make it fully operational in 50-60 months.

NTPC Ltd would invest $1.84 billion in setting up a 1,320 MW power plant and is to set up and maintain a 1,980 Mw coal-based thermal power project at Nabinagar, Bihar.

Godawari Power and Ispat (GPIL), an integrated steel manufacturer based in Chhattisgarh, is mulling foray into commercial power generation with projects in Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand with capacities ranging between 300 to 1,000 Mw with coal and coal rejects as fuel.

Vidoecon proposes a thermal power plant with a capacity of 1,000 Mw and investment of about Rs 4,000 crores in eastern UP. Venugopal N Dhoot may set up a photovoltaic (PV) factory somewhere in Varanasi for an estimated Rs. 1000 crore investment.

Kolkata-based Jain Energy plans for setting up a 1,000 Mw coal-based thermal power plant at Balpur of Janjgir-Champa district in Chattisgarh and expects to commission it in 2011 at an estimated investment of Rs 5,000 crore.

Jindal India Thermal Power Ltd plans to invest over Rs 20,000 crore to implement three pit-head, coal-based power projects totaling 4,300 Mw in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The firm also proposes to venture into hydel power production with plans to establish a 1,000 Mw project in North India at a cost of Rs 6,000 crore.

Hyderabad-based GVK Power & Infrastructure Ltd (GVKPIL) is setting up a 660 Mw thermal power project Amritsar at a project cost of about Rs 3,000 crore, and has also plans for a thermal power plant at Talwandi Sabo (1,800 Mw) and another coal-based thermal power plant near Rajpura (1,200 Mw) for an investment of Rs 12,000-14,000 crore.

Adani is targetting a power generation capacity of 10,000 Mw that will be operational in a phased manner.

Steel-maker Prakash Industries will set up a 600 Mw thermal power station in Chhattisgarh with an investment of about Rs 2,400 crore.

And similar initiatives are going on for hydel power too.

NHPC, the country’s largest hydel power company will double the power generation to become a 10,000 Mw-plus corporation by 2011-12 envisaging an investment of Rs 28,000 crore.

The Himachal Pradesh government has signed deals with private companies for building eight hydel projects, including two mega projects and six micro-sized projects.

Initiatives to remove the darkness do also cover alternative sources of energy.

More and more entrepreneurs are trying in different ways to tap solar energy to light up homes in rural hamlets

Moser Baer India is investing about $1.5 billion in increasing its thin-film photovoltaic capacity to 600 Mw over the next two years from the existing project capacity of 40 Mw.

After successfully starting its pilot wind energy project in Gujarat, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is now planning to invite bids for its second pilot project in Karnataka. ONGC will invest nearly Rs 600 crore in the first phase of its wind energy foray for generating nearly 15000 Mw of power. The total installed capacity for wind energy in India was about 7114 Mw.

And naturally the entrepreneurs are moving into equipment manufacturing too. BHEL can’t remain the sole supplier and the excuse for not meeting the target.

L&T is seriously getting into power equipment manufacturing. L&T is being officially promoted as the BHEL-II for manufacturing power equipment required for large super critical thermal power plants.

Lanco Infratech Ltd is planning to set up one of the country’s largest wind turbines manufacturing facilities, to take advantage of shortage of wind turbines in the global and domestic markets.

The interesting development is the increase in the number of power projects based on imported coal, which will be shipped in from countries such as Indonesia and Australia. “Of the 78,577Mw (of power generation capacity) that is to be added by 2012, around 4,000Mw will be from imported coal-based projects on the coasts.”

Delays in timely forest and environmental clearances for 30 thermal power projects, with a combined generation capacity of around 22,000Mw, may make it difficult for India to meet its already ambitious power generation targets. India must learn to complete its power projects within a timeframe that must match the best international standard, and move to cut down the electricity losses on war footing. Electricity losses in India are about 30% of output; in Bangladesh, it is below 10%. Will the initiatives make India power sufficient and efficient, if not power surplus?

I wish the government could design some robustness in administrative system that can build clear accountability to ensure timely executions. Simultaneously, a time bound programme for power conservation through disciplined use and technologies (preference and incentives for energy-efficient equipment and CFLs) must also be in place.

During my school days in Birlapur, I had heard of how Dr. BC Roy, the then chief minister, who was also a very reputed physician wrested the first IIT to get established at Kharagpur in West Bengal that was going to Bihar. People in those days could have hardly imagined that IIT, Kharagpur and then IITs as brand would go so famous. During our time even Shibpur Engineering College, Engineering college of Jadavpur was equally famous. My friend Ashoke had preferred Shibpur for his civil engineering. Indian School of Mines was also a very highly preferred institute in eastern India.

Today every state craves for getting an IIT and IIM. Political parties are making the demand of setting up an IIT and IIM in the state as part of its manifesto. Assam got one on political ground.

And appreciating its importance, the FM in his every budget speech includes the plan or progress on setting up of IITs or IIMs. “An IIM at Shillong; three IISERs at Mohali, Pune and Kolkata; and an IIIT at Kanchipuram have started functioning. In the process of establishing one Central University in each of the hitherto uncovered States, the FM proposed ‘to make a beginning in 2008-09 by establishing 16 Central Universities’. Besides, we propose to set up three IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan; two IISERs at Bhopal and Tiruvananthapuram; and two Schools of Planning and Architecture at Bhopal and Vijayawada.”

While Andhra has cleared the location of IITs, the selection of the sites for IITs in Rajasthan and Bihar is still not zeroed. Beside the state, the choice of sites in the state is causing political chaos.

In his Independence Day speech last August, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised of eight IITs in the pipeline. As reported, the government has also given the go-ahead to set up Indian Institutes of Technology in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh. 15 states are also vying for them.

Even Shashi Tharoor thinks that India by now would have established more number of IITs by now. “When I left India for post-graduate studies in 1975, there were perhaps 600 million people in India, and we had five IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology). Today, we are nearly double that population, and we have seven IITs. To keep up with demand – and the needs of the marketplace – shouldn’t we have had 20 IITs by now of the same standard as the original five? Or even 30?”
As it appears, crave for IITs will not stop till every state will have one IIT and IIM. But perhaps before that IIT and IIM will get its brand image diluted down where the demand will be meaningless.

I agree that more of engineering colleges providing technical education of the quality standard of IITs are essential for the country, but that doesn’t require setting up of IITs. Two other avenues can help meeting the demand of industry for good technical manpower. However, IITs are not the only answer.

Each of the IITs can become a hub for imparting education and get into a network of affiliation of six other state or private colleges of the region and with help of e-teaching and virtual laboratory already created by IITs for different branches of engineering and improve the quality of education to IIT level. An effective interchange of teachers and students can further the quality of education of the affiliated colleges.

More of the corporate houses must get into the business of engineering education, as in good old days Birlas did with BITS, Pilani and Ranchi that are no way inferior to IITs. Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and Great Lake Institute of Management, Chennai have already set examples of world-class institutes of management education outside the government control. Vedanta, Jindal, Ambanis are already going ahead. Thrust must also be on upgrading the facilities and quality of education at the existing facilities at both, the state and private colleges. Industry must play an active role in getting them affiliated more effectively with the reputed foreign universities of developed countries.

Instead IITs must further get into specialized and contemporary branches of technologies for its M.Tech levels to cater to various requirements of different sectors of the industry. Why can’t one IIT set up a School of Automotive Design or School of Tooling Design with help of experts in the sector? It is unfortunate that many of the sector-related knowledge remains with some pioneer companies and gets lost once the companies get into red and close its door. Some such areas for instance are gear design, machine tool design, and bearing design out of many in the industry.

It may sound a little trivial. However, whenever I visited mechanical or production engineering departments of IIT, Kharagpur; Jadavpur University; Pantnagar University, Institute of Technology of BHU, Varanasi or NIT, Kurukshetra, I got shock of my life about the gap between what were being taught and what are or going to be the need of the industry. Lack of knowledge and information about the industry even among the best of the teachers is dismal.

Further, the politicians with inferiority complex are damaging the great institutes by interference in the name of democracy and inclusive growth. Is it not the case with Presidency College, Bengal Engineering College, and Jadavpur University?

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PS: Read
!. ‘Instant IITs no growth recipe‘ by P. V. INDIRESAN former Director, IIT Madras
2. Online Education Takes Off in India in Business Week by Nandini Lakshman<

Many like me must be excited about FM’s proposals about the education sector significant increase in allocation for education- Sarva Shiksha Aviyan, extension of Mid-day Meal for 13.9 crore children and up to upper primary schools, setting up of 6,000 high quality model schools, some more Jawahar Yuva Kendras, Navodaya Vidyalayas in additional 20 districts, and 410 new Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, instituting a large number of scholarships, taking major steps to create knowledge society, establishing new IITs and other institutes of national importance, and awarding three institutes of excellence. Some more ambitious ones may find it inadequate, but the priority has got now the governmental attention.

The total allocation for the education sector (including NER) will be increased by 20 per cent from Rs.28, 674 crore in 2007-08 to Rs.34, 400 crore in 2008-09. What percentage of GDP is allocated to education? Is it now 6% as promised?
Will the extension of Mid-day meal to 13.9 crore children to all upper primary classes stop dropping out? Is it incentive enough to go to schools? Will the teachers be going for refresher courses to update themselves, or be showing more compassion and paying more attention to their students? Will the teaching become interesting enough for the children to enjoy the hours in the schools? The Finance Minister’s intentions are clear, but the roadmap is missing. “The focus of SSA will shift from access and infrastructure at the primary level to enhancing retention; improving quality of learning; and ensuring access to upper primary classes.” FM has mentioned of some of the work done and the new interesting proposals:

Institutes of national importance: An IIM at Shillong; three IISERs at Mohali, Pune and Kolkata; and an IIIT at Kanchipuram have started functioning. Government will establish one Central University in each of the hitherto uncovered States. We propose to make a beginning in 2008-09 by establishing 16 Central Universities. Besides, we propose to set up three IITs in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan; two IISERs at Bhopal and Tiruvananthapuram; and two Schools of Planning and Architecture at Bhopal and Vijayawada. Eleventh Five Year Plan appears to be giving education its due importance.

Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune one of the oldest institutions of modern learning in India gets a grant of Rs.5 crore. Three institutions of excellence- Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, Maharashtra; University of Mysore, Mysore; and Delhi University, Delhi will get a special grant of Rs 100 crore each. I dream of the day when 150- year old Presidency College, Kolkata gets a recognition as a heritage educational institute.

Science and Technology: To encourage the students to take to careers in science and research and development, Ministry of Science and Technology will introduce a scheme called Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) that will include scholarships for young learners (10-17 years), scholarships for continuing science education (17-22 years) and opportunities for research careers (22-32 years). FM has provided Rs.85 crore in 2008-09 for this inspired contribution to building a knowledge society.

Government has accepted an important recommendation of the National Knowledge Commission to inter-connect all knowledge institutions through an electronic digital broadband network that will encourage sharing of resources and collaborative research. FM provided the Ministry of Information and Technology Rs. 100 crore for establishing the National Knowledge Network.

Information Technology: FM has enhanced the allocation to the Department of Information Technology from Rs.1,500 crore in 2007-08 to Rs.1,680 crore in 2008-09 for driving the growth of Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services. A scheme for establishing 100,000 broadband internet-enabled Common Service Centres in rural areas and a scheme for establishing State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) with Central assistance are under implementation. A new scheme for State Data Centres has also been approved. FM has provided Rs.75 crore for the common service centres, Rs.450 crore for SWAN and Rs.275 crore for the State Data Centres.

One day in an integrated public-private initiative, all the 6.5 lakh schools of the country, including those in rural India must be part of the knowledge network and get benefit of online education.

Let the country get status of knowledge-predominate country. ‘Tamso Maa Jyotir Gamay’.

I thought I must also write about my views on the budget 2008 presented yesterday. For senior citizens, the exemption limit has been raised to Rs 2.25 lakh. I don’t bother about enhancement of exemption limit at my age when I don’t have that high an earning. I don’t know how many of senior citizens who are retired are earning good enough money for paying taxes. It must be a miniscule percentage. Even after working for almost 39 years, though in private sector, many like me hardly get any significant pension earning. As such the prices of all the commodities of daily use have gone so expensive that many a times we are forced to think before buying some essential things too. Even many, and I am also one among them, do take the risk of major illness. The premium of medical insurance for persons above 60 years of age is either pretty high or the insurance companies don’t have anything for them. And the cost of hospitalization and treatment as well as medicines has skyrocketed. It may be cheap with respect to the cost in UK, or US but for a retiree like me it is exorbitant.

All the time I wish some finance minister will introduce a scheme in which the persons paying significant income taxes for 20 years or more will be covered by some respectable medical insurance scheme, at least for major hospitalization. However, I don’t think it to happen ever.

I listened to the budget speech as religiously as I used to do earlier when it was necessary for adding to my professional excellence at work.

Mr. Chidambaram had proposed two missions in his first budget as UPA’s Finance Minister in 2004 that I got interested in. Both were of immense importance. First was his missionary zeal to get all the old water bodies in the country that were getting silted and vanished, renovated. It would have helped in irrigation, fishery, and tourism too. The FM never tells how many of the water bodies have been repaired and put back to their old glories. However, the FM has not dropped it from his agenda and has smartly put in to the sates’ responsibility with a statement: “Agreements have been signed with the World Bank by the Governments of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka under the project to repair, renovate and restore water bodies. The three agreements are for a total sum of US$738 million that will benefit a command area of 900,000 hectare. I am confident that similar agreements will be signed soon between the World Bank and the Governments of Orissa, West Bengal and some other States.” Why couldn’t the FM give a figure of the water bodies repaired in different states? Perhaps, the states didn’t take up the project seriously and carry out the work. Why can’t the creation of water bodies be a prime task of NREGS in rural areas where water scarcity causes poor farming yield? It can also be good prevention for the flood too, if carried out in a planned manner.

The second of his proposal right in 2004 budget was to upgrade the large number of Industrial training Institutes that was getting ineffective in providing the skilled manpower for the industrial development. Unfortunately, though the Finance Minister as well as CIIs and FICCI have been taking steps, but the progress is dismal. It hardly shows the tremendous need of the industry that look for double-digit growth. Let us look at what the FM has talked about it in the budget speech. “Under the World Bank assisted scheme, 238 ITIs are undergoing upgradation. Under the PPP scheme, 309 ITIs in 29 States have been identified with corresponding industry partners and agreements have been signed in 244 cases. 300 more ITIs will be upgraded in 2008-09.”

I think all the institutes would have undergone up-gradation by now. CII also has failed to keep the promises. Basically, India requires these institutes in thousands in both types Industrial Training Institutes that provides diploma courses as well as trade schools or vocational training institutes that train for trades of all types. And all these institutes would have been attached with some or the other private companies that would have been made responsible for the upgradation at least as its contribution to inclusive growth. The announcement of setting of a non-profit corporation with Rs 15,000 crore as capital from government, the private and public sector and bilateral and multilateral sources to address the major concern of skill shortage and skill development in the Budget 2008. Only time will tell if it succeeds to meet the challenges of manpower requirements of the country.

Today, India is really sort of skilled manpower. As many from the industry, particularly the booming realty sector point out the serious scarcity of masons, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, fitters, and persons of many other skills. As reported, in some state of south, people from Sri Lanka are joining the labour force. Where are the trade schools for filling this vacuum? Can the formal training institutes meet the demand? I feel the education at secondary and higher secondary level must make the training in one employable skill as compulsory for every student. Another institution that can be called on to help in building the skills among the willing young men and women of the country is the defence facilities, if the facilities in the industrial enterprises of various sectors are not sufficient.

The country has 9.5 lakh schools and 220 million schools students. How can there be a shortage of manpower of all the skill levels required from this big a mass? Why do the children drop out from the school? Mid-day meal can keep it only to a very little extent. Scholarship also can make only a little contribution. Education at school level must be made interesting and attractive enough for the kids who come there. Parents as well as the children themselves not start feeling the education as difficult to understand or useless I their perception. Schools from the primary to all levels must have more thrust on exploiting and nourishing their latent talent and creativity with more labs and laboratories to create or experiment with their ideas. Formal traditional knowledge from books is essential but not sufficient enough to keep them attached to the education process.

Why the FM and his government can’t keep the promises made? Why should a person like me who keep on following some specific promises believe in what he promises in the present budget such as IITs in Bihar, Andhra, and Rajasthan? And further will the next government or the FM if not UPA or Chidambaram comes back again have any commitment for the projects? For instance, what happened to five AIIMS promised or interlinking of rivers?

The survey tabled by the Finance Minister has some interesting data about the country’s economy and obviously for its people to look at future with hope. It also says that with some constraints on the road to growth removed, the country can easily attain a rate of growth that can alleviate the curse of poverty among a significant section of the population faster.And so all sacrifices, if any, are justified for getting into a growth rate of double digits. Mainly, some political parties must change its mindsets.

Interestingly, as reported, the tax collection both the direct and indirect has been rising significantly.

But 41% rise of tax collection raises certain queries. It must be because of the significant rise in the revenue earning and so the output of the taxpayers, both individuals and corporate. It means the individuals and corporate are working hard and efficiently, producing more, perhaps with better productivity, and growing richer. Why does it not reflect in GDP growth rate too that has gone down actually compared to last year?

The rise of tax collection certainly indicates the efficiency of the tax administration and its officers and better compliance of the taxpayers. Should not the tax rates be reduced to reduce the unbearable load on the existing taxpayers and to encourage those who must pay but don’t pay in the net willingly?