CART Events Report

CUTS-CART in association with FES had organised a day long, Division Level Workshop on “Involvement of Consumers in Power Sector Reforms in Rajasthan” on 6^th October 2001, at Chittorgargh. This division level workshop was the first in series to be conducted at Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur divisions, under this three year long programme undertaken by CART.

The workshop aimed at bring all the stakeholders on a common platform to discuss the prevailing scenario in power sector, within the region, especially in rural areas. Stakeholders had exploited this opportunity to exchange their views about their expectations to each other, difficulties faced by them and their responsibilities. Also, some lose groups of local people would be formed to play the role of watch dog in their respective villages, which in turn would be transformed as `Pressure Groups’ subsequently.

The first divisional level workshop was organised at the CUTS Centre for Human Development, Chittorgarh, Udaipur Division o n the 6^th October 2001. The event had a total participation of over 80 people from various walks of life, out of which over 40% constituted women.

The broad category of participants were farmers, rural domestic consumers, members of the Panchayati Raj Institution, engineers and linesmen from the local power distribution company, namely, Ajmer Electricity Distribution Company Limited and from local district administration. Due to the occurrence of communal violence at Chittorgarh, the members of the district administration could only make a brief token presence, in the post-lunch session of the workshop.

The workshop had two main sessions, the first session being an open house, where the participants expressed their views on the current power scenario and also came up with some solutions as to how the situation could be improved. The open house was lively with healthy debates between the masses and the members of the Panchayati Raj Institutions on one side and the representatives of the distribution company on the other.

The second session, the post-lunch session was primarily group work, where four groups were formed and each group was assigned the task of identifying key problems vis-à-vis power supply in their area, arrive at possible solutions and also assign responsibilities as to what role each member of the public could play in improving the situation, with CUTS & FES providing the platform as facilitators.

The workshop was flagged off with a ceremonial lighting of the lamp. The first session started by giving a brief background of the project and a broad outline of the outcome of the launch cum design workshop. Ms. Damayanthy Sridharan, explained the ideology of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Thereafter, the session was left open for the participants to air their views on the current power scenario in their villages and what they expected from the system. They were also encouraged to come out with probable solutions to the problems and in what manner they as consumers to work towards eliminating these problems.

· Lack of adequate supply of power – maximum of 2-3 hours day, with bulk of the supply being night times

· Further, the timings of supply was not known, there is no uniformity in the supply of power in terms of timings

· Erratic supply in terms of voltage, sometimes even a single bulb does not glow

· Long wait for new connection, leading people to resort to thefts, waiting period for connections was sometimes as much as 10-15 years.

· Discriminatory practices followed by the utility staff – more power to the rich, who also resort to thieving and less power to the farmer and domestic rural consumers – this is possible through line adjustments.

· Expressed their willingness to pay if they were given quality and quantity of power

· This was proved by the fact that many of the farmers today have generators and they had estimated that the cost of generating one unit of power through generators cost them as high as Rs. 10/- per unit.

· Willing to take collective responsibility – formation of committees to monitor and help in reducing thefts, to monitor the activities of lines men and bring to the notice of appropriate authorities in case a lines man or engineer/s was found to be corrupt/ monitor and ensure bill collections and timely payments etc.

The general views expressed by the consumers were more or less also endorsed by the representatives of the utility providers who acknowledged some fault of theirs. They however felt that poor supply of power and failure to provide new connections was due to paucity in the generation of power. They also added that theft and pilferage of power, which accounted to over 40%, was yet another cause for the shortage of power.

The first session ended with the organisers pointing out to the participants that the villagers could work collectively in reducing the shortage of power situation, by setting up community power generating stations using alternate energy sources such as solar, bio-mass, bio-gas etc. Some successful cases of community projects which has been implemented in Kerala were also presented in brief. A successful case of cooperative society for power distribution by a rural village community in Andhra Pradesh was also presented to the participants. The presentation were brief and were more of a food for thought for the participants, to enable them to have some more thoughts and ideas for their group work.

· To bring-upon all the stakeholders at a common platform to discuss openly all their expectations, problems and their likely solutions.

· To improve the working coordination and develop understanding between local utility providers and consumers

· To communicate to the people at grass root that their active participation is a must to find out the solutions to their problems.

· To create awareness about on-going reform process and explain to all stakeholders their responsibilities and obligations.

· To motivate people to form groups at local level to watch upon the power scenario and to do efforts in improving it, continuously

· To arrive at some consensus on what activities need to be taken and to prioritise them in accordance with the need and requirement

· To generate a responsive approach amongst the masses to get involved in community projects – exploring alternate energy sources for heating and lighting.

The Outcome of the Working Group discussions

The outcome of the working groups can be summarised under three heads of activities which would be performed by the people under the project `Involvement of Consumers in Power Sector Reforms’ with active facilitation of CUTS & FES. The broad activities are grouped under three categories, namely, `Immediate & Priority’, `Medium Term’ and `Long Term’.

Immediate and Priority

· Formation of a loose committee at the initial stage comprising of villagers – farmers and members of the already formed Self Help Groups of CUTS, members of Panchayati Raj Institutions, local representative of the Distribution Company and some interested rural domestic consumers. This would be at the village level.

· CUTS & FES would organise chaupal bhaitaks to address this committee and also any one from the village who is interested – these chaupal bhaitaks would primarily be in the form of `capacity building meetings’ where awareness would be generated on key issues related to power, alternate energy sources, people’s participation in the activities of the Regulatory Commission, monitoring, billing, metering, etc.

· Information on `conditions of supply’, rules for new connections, current power scenario etc would be disseminated to the people through various mediums – print, audio visual (video programmes), street plays, posters, banners etc.

· At the state level, CUTS & FES would document the reactions of the people and present a case to the policy makers in order to sensitise them.

Medium Term

The effects of the short term programmes would have a bearing on the plans for the medium term. In other words, the medium term programmes would emanate from the success of the short term programmes. The programmes so envisaged are

· Exploring alternate energy for heating and lighting with technical training and inputs provided by CUTS & FES

· People coming forward and contributing their mite towards launching a joint programme for the village

Long Term

Note: Representatives of FES & CUTS also made a visit to two villages on the 5^th October 2001, the villages identified were

At the first village, we were able to meet only a few members of the Self Help Groups, but a large gathering of villagers were present along with members of the Panchayati Raj Institutions and the sole linesman of the village. The meeting was primarily to assess the reaction of the people to any programme of the nature planned by FES & CUTS and also to assess the ground realities vis-à-vis power supply in the area. The views expressed by them are more or less in tandem with what views came out on the 6^th October 2001 workshop. In fact the meeting was held at the Panchayat Bhawan.

In the second village, we were able to have good discussions with many members of the Self Help Groups – women, a good numbers of villagers and the members of the Panchayat Raj Institutions. Their sentiments were similar to the ones expressed at village Oonkhaliya. This meeting was also held at the Panchayat Bhawan.

We also had a meeting with Mr. Meghraj Jat, Pradhan of Nimbahera Block who promised us the support of his entire office for our programmes.

This sentiment was also echoed by Mr. Govind Singh Saktawat, Pradhan of Badesar Block who graced the workshop on the 6^th October 2001. He is also on the Board of Directors of Indira Gandhi Panchyat Raj Samsthan, Jaipur.

Invitees: Divisional and district administration officials, Utility providers, Panchayati Raj Representatives, Consumers from the Grass root Farmers, Consumer rights activists, NGOs and Members of Legislative Assembly of the region

Consumer Unity & Trust Society

Srinivas Krishnaswamy / Vinayak Ratna Pandey

D-217, Bhaskar Marg

Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India

Ph: +91(0)141-228 2821-3

Fax: +91(0)141-228 2485

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

Manfred Haack / Kabir Seth

K-70 B, Hauz Khas Enclave,

Delhi – 110 016

Ph: 91-11-656 1361-64

Fx: 91-141-656 1365