Indira Rajaraman: The power grid knockout
The immediate cause was the inability of the Regional Load Dispatch Centre (RLDC) to control overdrawing of power by states connected to the grid. The RLDC was not empowered to operate circuit-breakers, and could only warn erring states. The erring states were too powerful politically for the RLDC to do anything other than sound repeated warnings.
Why should politics have anything whatever to do with something as routine as drawing electricity from a grid? Clearly, if technical systems of this type have not been ring-fenced from political pressures, a regional chieftain could hold the entire country to ransom, pulling down the country if he or she is displeased. Something is seriously wrong with the structuring of the Indian federation.
I have written repeatedly about the desperate need for an inter-state platform where states could meet regularly on their interconnectedness on a number of issues. The Constitution actually provides for such a platform in the form of an Inter State Council (ISC) under Article 263, but the Council came into being only in 1990. The ISC provides in principle a forum where states could meet on issues, and decide in concert on ceding to technical bodies like the RLDC the right to operate traffic signals in a purely rule-bound manner.
This kind of process, whereby members of a group cede to an external authority the right to enforce discipline among the group, in a way that cannot be legally challenged by a displeased member, is very common. In academic departments in American universities for instance, where yearly salary fixation based on productivity involves contentious and unpleasant decisions, it is not uncommon for faculty to agree to an externally appointed Head, who functions in effect as a constitutional dictator.
In practise, the ISC has atrophied through disuse into a somnolent institution tucked away somewhere in the folds of the Vigyan Bhavan office complex. The ISC commissions studies of various kinds, but by the time the study reports fall due, the personnel at the ISC have changed several times over. Every once in a while, the ISC acts as the local partner of the Canada-based Forum of Federations, for conferences on what are sometimes quite topical issues. The conference is held, but there is no follow-up.
Around 10 years ago when I lobbied strenuously for a revival of the rightful role of the ISC, I got two responses. One was that the National Development Council (NDC) provides the platform I was looking for. The second was that when an issue involving state co-operation comes to the fore, temporary platforms spring up to deal with it.
The NDC is a large unwieldy body that meets sparingly, with a set agenda typically centred around approval of national Five-Year Plans. Meetings of the NDC have ritual value like meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, but lead to no systematic resolution of problems.
Temporary platforms do indeed get formed when there is a pressing issue calling for co-operation and consensus between states. The most recent and successful of these is the Empowered Group of State Finance Ministers, which shepherded the coming on board of all states on the value added tax (VAT), and is presently carrying forward – with many a hookup – the further move to a dual-track Centre-state goods and services tax (GST). And of course river water disputes are governed under a separate Constitutional provision (Article 262).
Even so, there are many issues that arise from time to time, each one possibly a problem confined to just a few affected states, that do not by themselves justify a separate temporary platform. But these could if ignored snowball into a general sense of isolation and dis empowerment, which could severely hamper the co-operation needed for any federation to endure. The number of states affected by any single issue could be small, but the problem itself could be large and of overwhelming importance to them.
Thanks : source