Ghani Khan Chaudhuri and his rural electrification scheme in Malda

If there is one Union minister who is determined to kill his parliamentary constituency with kindness, it is Abdul Barkat Ataul Ghani Khan Chaudhuri, 54, the feisty, corpulent energy minister. Ten months after a scandal involving distribution of coal permits to fake consumers (see India Today, August 16-31, 1980) rocked Chaudhuri's home district, Malda, in north Bengal, the minister is in the vortex of yet another controversy.Last month, amid great fanfare, Chaudhuri had inaugurated a rural electrification scheme in Malda. The project, which brings electricity to the 50,000 people living in the 131-square kilometre river island of Bhutni, in the shadow of the Rajmahal Hills, was gone through with unseemly haste and in total violation, of the memoranda of association of the implementing agency - West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB).The Rs 38 lakh project involved the laying of an 11 kv overhead cable for a length of 6.5 kilometres from Manikchak, the nearest sub-station, to Shankartola, on the bank of the river, followed by the laying of another 1,650 metres of submarine cable for spanning the river, and finally to connect it to Chandipur village, located on the island. Obviously, the underground and submarine parts of the cable were difficult to lay and consumed 40 per cent of the project cost.However, the project was first mooted in 1976, when Chaudhuri, as the state's power minister in Siddhartha Sankar Ray's Cabinet got the WBSEB to put it up before Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), the Central Government undertaking which is the sole funding agency for rural electrification projects. However, the scheme was rejected by REC on the ground that it was not viable.Project Shelved: Calculations of project viability are ordinarily made by REC on the basis of the categorisation of the area done by the state electricity boards. In the case of Bhutni, WBSEB marked it off as an "Ordinary Backward" (OB) area. In order to sanction a project in an OB area, the losses have to be limited to 3.5 per cent of the capital investment by the fifth year, and must be wiped out by the 10th year, guaranteeing a 3.5 per cent profit by the 20th year. Apparently, the estimated load factor at Bhutni did not inspire enough confidence in REC. and the project was shelved.However, in 1980, Chaudhuri, after being installed in the Energy Ministry, drew up a massive plan to build what his own supporters often banteringly describe as "sonar Malda" (the golden Malda). The ruling Left Front chose not to throw a spanner in his works as long as the project was to be carried out by WBSEB. Under the rules, REC can only provide the finances for electrifying villages, but has no control over the lines.In March last year, WBSEB retracted from its own stand in 1976, and re-categorised Bhutni this time as a "Specially Underdeveloped" (SU) area, which calls for far more relaxed guarantees of repayment. In the case of SU villages, losses may go up to 6 per cent of the invested capital even by the seventh year, and need not break even before the 15th year.This time, thanks to the recategorisation of Bhutni by the Marxist-controlled WBSEB, Chaudhuri managed to get the scheme approved. T.G.K. Charlu, the chairman of RFC, got files moving with exemplary speed in three days - and the project was poised to begin within a fortnight of its approval. The snag appeared when Chaudhuri called WBSEB officials and insisted that the project had to be completed "in 365 days". He reportedly said that he was pledged to the electorate to get it installed by April 1981 - an urgency that "brooks no delay".Opposition: WBSEB officials pointed out the difficult nature of the job, and were surprised at this haste. Further north, at Rengli-Rangliot and Kalimpong in Darjeeling district, a similar SU electrification scheme, the only other scheme in that category in the state, had been sanctioned as far back as 1976 and was still continuing. "The minister was obviously using us to nurse his constituency," said a senior WBSEB official who was opposed to recategorisation of Bhutni right from the beginning.Chaudhuri got round WBSEB's reluctance by involving the public sector National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in a questionable manner. The three-year-old corporation, whose main task is to set up large power houses and lay high-voltage transmission cables for these, was roped into the project. There is no precedence for NTPC to lay transmission lines for power generated in State Electricity Boards (SEB) plants. In West Bengal. Calcutta State Electricity Corporation (CSEC), formerly a British-owned company, undertakes transmission jobs for WBSEB only under a special legislation.Chaudhuri: Large-hearted with energyHowever, WBSEB chose to look the other way as NTPC went ahead with the submarine and underground part of the Bhutni project, awarding the contract to Cescon, the construction division of CSEC. "This was nothing but political expediency. If NTPC is so eager to help out WBSEB, why doesn't it extend help to it in all its rural electrification schemes." wondered a WBSEB official.NTPC was assigned the job, technically, by WBSEB, though the controlling levers were operated from New Delhi's Shram Shakti Bhavan which houses the Energy Ministry. Both NTPC and Cescon finished the job in a record time of six months, and the project was ready for switching on by March 31, although the formal inauguration took place on April 11.Glittering Ceremony: The inauguration ceremony was the most glittering affair in the insignificant annals of Bhutni. The energy minister had descended on Malda a day earlier in a helicopter hired from the public sector Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). J.N. Talukdar, a former district magistrate of Malda and a friend of the minister's father, presided. Charlu flew down from New Delhi to attend the ceremony, which opened to the strains of devotional Tagore songs sung by the local children.The state Government was lukewarm about the project, at least publicly. The Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, reportedly declined an invitation to the inauguration ceremony. The assembled crowd was left in no doubt about who was the boss. The same day, Chaudhuri got the branch of a nationalised bank opened at Bhutni, the 25th in the district. From less than Rs 1.5 crore in 1979-80, the disbursement of bank loans in Malda has gone up to Rs 3.5 crore now, though debt repayments in the district are among the lowest.Apparently, the Marxists are still prepared to meet Chaudhuri more than half way in fulfilling his mission of creating a golden Malda. Recently, WBSEB was asked by REC which two districts it would like to have electrified in full by June 1982. One of the two districts mentioned by WBSEB was Malda, to be sure.For the Marxists, wooing Chaudhuri is a ploy to keep the state Congress(I) ranks divided. It paid bountiful dividends recently when Chaudhuri, who was invited to a special meeting of the Political Affairs Committee of the Union Cabinet to discuss the West Bengal situation, is believed to have doggedly defended his view that the Left Front Government in Calcutta should be allowed to complete its term.A foot note for REC's remarkable capacity to identify "distress areas". Last year, within five months of the change of government at the Centre, it electrified - through Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board - all the villages in Medak, the parliamentary constituency of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Feb 24, 2014 12:56 IST--- ENDS ---

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Ghani Khan Chaudhuri and his rural electrification scheme in Malda

If there is one Union minister who is determined to kill his parliamentary constituency with kindness, it is Abdul Barkat Ataul Ghani Khan Chaudhuri, 54, the feisty, corpulent energy minister.

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