Bihar electrification drive involves crossing rivers and fixing bills

Bihar had, in October, declared full electrification. In 2015, Business Standard visited some villages, and now again to assess the change in a two-part series

About 75 km downstream from the Birpur barrage on the India-Nepal border, there are 84 households in the middle of the Kosi. It takes about a half an hour’s Bolero ride from Supaul town to reach the river bank, from where the journey begins on a rickety boat. 

The river level is not very high in December, but still a boat is needed to transport men, animals, motor bikes and even tractors. Waiting at the embankment across one of the spurs of the river are two bikes that run on the sand bed to reach Khokhananaha, one of the many such villages in the river itself. 

“A tractor is carried on two boats with one half of it resting on one boat and the other on another boat,” says 22-year-old Jitendra, while giving a pillion ride along the newly sowed masoor (red lentil) and mustard crops. Sometimes, if the water level is low and tractors are powerful enough, they wade through the water and sand, saving Rs 500 that the boatman will otherwise charge the owners. 

Jitendra says he bought an ACE tractor in February 2018 for about Rs 700,000 and now pays a monthly instalment of Rs 15,000 for it. He uses the tractor for farming and gives it on rent to others. Currently, along with other village folks, he is trying to get some more tractors to collect sand from the river and make a temporary drive way to take people from his village directly to the market without having to take the boat. “The boat man charges Rs 5 a person for every ride," he says. 

The same boats and tractors were used to transport men and material, including solar panels, pillars and wirings to “energise” people living in the river. “In these areas, about 40 per cent of the work is done if the material for electrification is successfully transported,” says a Bihar government official from North Bihar Power Distribution Company, one of the two distribution companies in the state. 

Bihar completed electrification of all households in October 2018 under its own Har Ghar Bijli scheme, which the state claims the Centre adopted as Saubhagya. This exercise meant reaching out to 2.9 million un-electrified households, wherever they resided, be it in the middle of a river or a jungle. According to the state's power department, this task was completed in 159 working days, which translates to an average of 18,265 connections a day. 

Each household in Khokhananaha is mandated to get at least 6-8 hours of power supply from a 15Kw solar power system, put up by Larsen & Toubro. Under contract with the Bihar government costing Rs 300 crore, the company has put up 365 such solar mini-grid plants and 12,422 standalone systems in 233 villages covering 41,498 households across the state.  L&T will maintain and operate the systems for five years after the installation. Consumers pay a monthly charge of Rs 30 if they are below the poverty line and Rs 60 if above the line. Where there are mini grids, three LED bulbs of 9 watt each, one fan, a mobile charging point and two socket points, totalling 117 watts, which can be run. 

For a standalone system, where each household has a small solar panel installed for power supply, the total load can be 93 watts.  These decentralised distributed generation systems are put up since getting grid to certain areas is difficult and unviable. In Supaul, for instance, there are areas, which have grid power for long and even in the outer side of river embankments, there is power supply from the government grid since September 2017. But villages, such as Khokhananaha, are connected to self-generating mini grids. This is because the Kosi causes floods and its changing course makes things tougher. 

Mini grid systems require a minimum of 15 households and are designed in a way that they be connected to grids in the future. The solar power plant at Khokhananaha is built at a stilt slightly above the average flood level, ensuring minimum damage when the river is in full flow during July-September. 

“It is not the flood, which over the years we know how to deal with, but land denudation that is the bane of this river,” says the boatman at Khokhananaha, as he gets help from two children to empty water that seeped into his boat. 

Though villagers across Saran, Supaul and Araria districts say the electrification drive backed by an improved power supply has ensured electricity for around 16-18 hours a day, its quality remains unpredictable. Besides, power for agriculture purposes is non-existent. 

Farmers like Shailendra Kumar of Gopalganj pay Rs 100-120 for an hour of water supply to private operators who run bore pumps on diesel. “Government power has improved but in years like this when there is a drought, at least four to five hours of water supply is needed for rice crop but we cannot afford to pay pump operators since we do not get much return from sale of the crop,” says Kumar. Government-run bore pump operators do not supply water on some pretext or the other. 

According to Pratyaya Amrit, Bihar’s principal secretary, power, putting up 1,312 electricity supply feeders dedicated to meet the agriculture load is the next big task. “We want to ensure at least 6-8 hours uninterrupted power supply for agriculture by December 2019. This will help deal with the scenario of drought,” he says. 

Bihar saw early electrification and much of its power infrastructure was put up through the 70s, which now needs replacement. “Along with agriculture feeders, reconductoring that will involve strengthening of low tension (LT) and high tension (HT) power transmission lines is a priority,” says Amrit. 

The state is simultaneously buying and putting up 1 million meters to comply with a Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission order that requires metering of all power connections. 

Along with the electrification drive, comes the task of reducing losses. About 95 per cent of Bihar’s 3,100 Mw power demand is met from sources outside the state. Data from Central Electricity Authority, however, shows that in April-November 2018 period, the state saw an energy demand of 21,247 million units (kw/hour) most of which was met leaving a deficit of 1 per cent against the country average of 0.6 per cent. The state's peak power demand is expected to rise from 1,800 Mw in 2014 to about 6,000 Mw next year. 

Under the Centre's UDAY programme for debt restructuring of state-owned distribution companies, however, Bihar is required to cut losses to 22 per cent by March 2019 but rapid electrification only mounts expenses. "We will be able to bring down losses to 25 per cent which will not be much away from the target. It is not easy but we are working hard on billing," he says.