16 long years have passed since it all started! The case was investigated initially by local police. If my memory is correct, crime branch also had their share in the investigation pie. After many interventions and court proceedings, the case was handed over to the premier detective agency in the Indian republic - Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Their investigations was also not very successful till this week. Ultimately 3 persons were arrested in connection with the case yesterday. It is another shameful fact that all the arrested are people who have taken religious vows. There was a CBI official who resigned in the middle of the investigations allegedly owing to too much of pressure from the top echelons of power. There was a program called 'Varthamanam' in Surya TV in which this official talks about his views on the issue. This is going to be telecast / re-telecast on saturday 22nd at 11:00 pm (IST).
Initially this case was being written off as a suicide by local police and other investigating agencies including CBI. At one point of time CBI requested High Court of Kerala to close the case owing to lack of evidence etc. However, court had reprimanded CBI and expressed serious concern over effectiveness of investigation. Only after court issued strong orders, CBI handed over the case to Kochi unit. We can't label the arrested as accused as of now. They had been subjected to interrogation in the most scientific ways many times by different investigation teams. Hope truth will prevail in the end & culprits will be booked .
It is evident from such a long term that there have been meddling in this case from different sections. Somehow the church seems to be involved too. It would have been better if all of us believe in the proverb 'To err is human'. Whoever committed such heinous crime should not have been shielded for such a long time. CBI officials have indicated that they will wind up the case within a month or so. Lets hope for the best.
Let me add here that I don't think a few people in religious positions committing a crime defaces the whole concepts of religion. After all they are also plain humans like you or me. May God allow eternal rest to the soul of Sr. Abhaya.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
India & America
After the announcement of next president of USA, there were a hue and cry in Indian media that Indian Premier did not talk to him and vice versa. It was construed in the anti-Indian line. I guess it will be premature to get into such hypothetical conclusions. The fact is that Dr.Manmohan Singh was on a foreign trip at the time when US election results were declared. After Prime Minister returned, there was indeed a dialogue. Obviously foreign policy evolves very slowly & there are no discontinuities simply because of a power change at the helm. This is under normal circumstances & I am not considering abrupt changes such as coup etc. Hence I feel there is nothing to worry either for India or for America. Since there are not much juicy news at this point of time, media made up a hill out of a mole. Some statements were found in the US media about restrictions in the outsourcing industry which can adversely affect Indian Industry. Already the recession in US has affected profits of IT industry. I am stressing the word profit because no firm has gone to red owing to that. I guess every industry will find alternate avenues for coping up. In fact the outsourcing is clearly a win-win situation and i can't see why status quo needs to be disturbed. America is defenitely one of the biggest capitalistic countries and excessive governmental restrictions will alter the whole nature of economy. India on the other hand is less capitalistic in nature. Financial sector can be taken as one example. There are many restrictions on pension funds as to where they can park the money. After all government has got the responsibility of ensuring growth of accumulated money. On one hand this looks bit strange since profits would have been enormous if funds were allowed to invest in stock especially secondary market. On the brighter side, the funds remain unaffected by the recent plunges in market. Here also i feel status quo will continue. Neither US will try to reign business houses too much nor India will allow certain sectors to play way ward.
"Loka Samastha
Sukhino Bhavanthu"
"Loka Samastha
Sukhino Bhavanthu"
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Electricity Tariff Hike in Kerala
Some days back, I tried to through some light on long term sustainability of KSEB in wake of increased dependence on thermal power. Compared to hydel power generation from old power stations, thermal power is costly. Moreover, nearest central power utility of super thermal capacity is in Andhra Pradesh and hence KSEB will have to bear the expenses for power transportation from the generating station till Kerala (Wheeling Charges). Yesterday, there was a news item confirming the salvage action. All domestic consumers who uses more than 200 Units (KWh) will have to pay at the rate of Rs. 7.85 /- for consumption above that limit. Now I am kind of taken aback. I think this is on the higher side. As indicated in the earlier blog, the selling cost of power for a pit head (Near Coal Mine) power station will be less than Rs. 3/-. The wheeling charges will not come to that much. Considering that all interstate power lines are either Extra High Voltage or better still High Voltage Direct Current, the transmission losses are minimal. May be KSEB wants to make good its earlier losses! Hope wisdom will prevail and Government of Kerala as well as the tariff commission / Regulatory authority will tone down the tariff hike to some reasonable limits.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
News & Views
Gloabal news had the of US presidential election with Obama winning. Also there was a local news in Surya TV regarding the release of new malayalam movie "Twenty20" produced by Actor Dileep under the banner of AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Actors).
I will concentrate on the local news..!
There were issues about exhibitors boycotting the release of above movie. Unlike the agreed upon 'Wide; release wherein a new movie is released in B & C class theaters too (located in town/village), Distributors of this movie reduced the number of prints to some 70 or so. Hope that issue was solved before the release. It is a star studded movie & anybody who is somebody in the malayalam cinema had associated with the movie. Reports indicate that it was a very huge commercial success so far.
Kerala government tried to act smart & decreed that for the initial days of release of the picture, you will have to pay premium to view the movie. There was a smarter guy (An Advocate, C.K.Rajappan, incidently from Cherthala) who filed a petition in court against the price hike. The court had ruled that government have the right only to give exemption to payment of entertainment tax but it can't make some kind of increase in price at the time of release.
thats about the whole episode. Hope the movie continues to do good & malayalam movie sector will come back to its full glory in near future
I will concentrate on the local news..!
There were issues about exhibitors boycotting the release of above movie. Unlike the agreed upon 'Wide; release wherein a new movie is released in B & C class theaters too (located in town/village), Distributors of this movie reduced the number of prints to some 70 or so. Hope that issue was solved before the release. It is a star studded movie & anybody who is somebody in the malayalam cinema had associated with the movie. Reports indicate that it was a very huge commercial success so far.
Kerala government tried to act smart & decreed that for the initial days of release of the picture, you will have to pay premium to view the movie. There was a smarter guy (An Advocate, C.K.Rajappan, incidently from Cherthala) who filed a petition in court against the price hike. The court had ruled that government have the right only to give exemption to payment of entertainment tax but it can't make some kind of increase in price at the time of release.
thats about the whole episode. Hope the movie continues to do good & malayalam movie sector will come back to its full glory in near future
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Vaidyuthiyum Keralavum
Disclaimer ! The facts & figures depicted here are purely an estimation. I will be glad if anybody can point out mistakes. The view point is totally mine & my employer or professional associates are not connected in anyway to this post.
There is a burning issue of electricity deficiency in my home state of Kerala. Traditionally all power houses in the state are based on run of the river hydro power stations. There is practically no fuel cost and hence the cost of production is pretty low. Considering the fact that most of the stations were constructed long back and the return on capital employed had been almost taken out the cost of selling can be quite low. Please bear in mind that cost of construction of a hydro station can be quite high. Especially since there is a huge amount of concreting involved in making of the dam which normally is located in some obscure, difficult to reach terrain. Add monetary equivalent for the loss of land/forest/environmental concerns etc & you get the overall picture. As far as i know, the regular demand for electricity in the state is about 2000 MW. The generating capacity falls just short but there are considerable gap vis-a-vis peak load demand. So far Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is depending upon electricity from the central pool for meeting this shortage. In order to expand the options particularly in view of erratic behavior of monsoon, KSEB constructed small thermal power stations (e.g., Brahmapuram & Nallalam Diesel Power Plants). However the cost of generation is quite high and in the current tariff, these stations can not be economically viable. There was a huge hue and cry when power allocation from central pool was reduced in the past months. However it must be noted that alternating governments never did a thing to make sure that KSEB will add to its generation capacity. Almost every hydel project was stalled in view of environmental concern. (I do not mean to say that concern towards environment is bad). Pretty politics also played its role in stunting the growth of KSEB. The central pool allocation of electricity is mostly from the coal based thermal power plants owned by central public sector companies. The electricity tariff from such stations are fixed by Central electricity Authority (CEA) after considering various factors including each stations cost of generation and economic viability int he long run. Some of the central power producing utilities have tri-partiate agreements in the payment clause of power purchase agreement so that if the state delays payment, the same can be realised from the resource allocation from Centre to the state through Reserve Bank of India. When Kayamkulam gas based power project was being set up by central government undertaking NTPC Ltd, it was heralded as the solution for Kerala's power deficit. The power purchase agreement was signed accordingly. In case Kerala was not taking up power from Kayamkulam, KSEB was to pay compensation to the producer. Owing to shortage of natural gas, Naptha is being used as fuel there. There was high variations in the price of Naptha in the international market and the cost of generation from Kayamkulam power plant got hiked up. At one point of time, KSEB was not taking any power from that station since KSEB will lose more money if power is taken and distributed at a much lower cost!
Now alternating governments in kerala have realsied that it will be foolish to depend only on hydel generation. One MOU was signed between governments of Kerala & Orissa for coal linkage. Recently there were news that Kerala Government will set up a coal based thermal power plant in cheemeni in kannur probably using coal from Orissa. In my humble opinion, it will be better if kerla sets up a captive power plant in orissa itself and transfer electricity from there to kerala rather than transport huge quantity of coal all the way about 1500 km. In addition there is the problem of ash disposal which can be more severe for a densely populated state such as kerala.
One thing is sure, the cost of generation from any thermal power plants will be higher. Already KSEB had resorted to load shedding or power cut for many years. This year a thermal surcharge is being imposed on the consumer to make good the loss to KSEB on account of thermal power purchase. Since there are not many industries in kerala, the domestic house hold, Hotels and other merchant establishments are the major consumers. One more tariff hike is in the offing. There will be lot of agitations afterwards. But we need to look at things more realistically. If KSEB can't make itself at least in break-even position, the state is in for a shock, literally! I hope the alternating governments led by two major political fronts in kerala will set apart their traditional enimity and look at things with eagerness to long term solutions rather than short term political mileage.
It should be emphasised that whenever a powercut occurs, merchant establishments as well as apartments switch to diesel/kerosine based power generators. They are highly costly and produce more harm to environment than thermal power plants. In the interest of all, it might be better if we can make appropriate hike in tariff than to allow load shedding to progressivel increase to 24 hours a day.
On the other hand, it is important for kerala to nurture cordial industrial atmosphere so that there can be more balance in the peak - off peak demand ratio. The continuous factories normally have their own captive power generation capability or at least will be in aposition to buy at higher rate.
Hmm, i guess this had been pretty long. Better stop than to bore you further........
There is a burning issue of electricity deficiency in my home state of Kerala. Traditionally all power houses in the state are based on run of the river hydro power stations. There is practically no fuel cost and hence the cost of production is pretty low. Considering the fact that most of the stations were constructed long back and the return on capital employed had been almost taken out the cost of selling can be quite low. Please bear in mind that cost of construction of a hydro station can be quite high. Especially since there is a huge amount of concreting involved in making of the dam which normally is located in some obscure, difficult to reach terrain. Add monetary equivalent for the loss of land/forest/environmental concerns etc & you get the overall picture. As far as i know, the regular demand for electricity in the state is about 2000 MW. The generating capacity falls just short but there are considerable gap vis-a-vis peak load demand. So far Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is depending upon electricity from the central pool for meeting this shortage. In order to expand the options particularly in view of erratic behavior of monsoon, KSEB constructed small thermal power stations (e.g., Brahmapuram & Nallalam Diesel Power Plants). However the cost of generation is quite high and in the current tariff, these stations can not be economically viable. There was a huge hue and cry when power allocation from central pool was reduced in the past months. However it must be noted that alternating governments never did a thing to make sure that KSEB will add to its generation capacity. Almost every hydel project was stalled in view of environmental concern. (I do not mean to say that concern towards environment is bad). Pretty politics also played its role in stunting the growth of KSEB. The central pool allocation of electricity is mostly from the coal based thermal power plants owned by central public sector companies. The electricity tariff from such stations are fixed by Central electricity Authority (CEA) after considering various factors including each stations cost of generation and economic viability int he long run. Some of the central power producing utilities have tri-partiate agreements in the payment clause of power purchase agreement so that if the state delays payment, the same can be realised from the resource allocation from Centre to the state through Reserve Bank of India. When Kayamkulam gas based power project was being set up by central government undertaking NTPC Ltd, it was heralded as the solution for Kerala's power deficit. The power purchase agreement was signed accordingly. In case Kerala was not taking up power from Kayamkulam, KSEB was to pay compensation to the producer. Owing to shortage of natural gas, Naptha is being used as fuel there. There was high variations in the price of Naptha in the international market and the cost of generation from Kayamkulam power plant got hiked up. At one point of time, KSEB was not taking any power from that station since KSEB will lose more money if power is taken and distributed at a much lower cost!
Now alternating governments in kerala have realsied that it will be foolish to depend only on hydel generation. One MOU was signed between governments of Kerala & Orissa for coal linkage. Recently there were news that Kerala Government will set up a coal based thermal power plant in cheemeni in kannur probably using coal from Orissa. In my humble opinion, it will be better if kerla sets up a captive power plant in orissa itself and transfer electricity from there to kerala rather than transport huge quantity of coal all the way about 1500 km. In addition there is the problem of ash disposal which can be more severe for a densely populated state such as kerala.
One thing is sure, the cost of generation from any thermal power plants will be higher. Already KSEB had resorted to load shedding or power cut for many years. This year a thermal surcharge is being imposed on the consumer to make good the loss to KSEB on account of thermal power purchase. Since there are not many industries in kerala, the domestic house hold, Hotels and other merchant establishments are the major consumers. One more tariff hike is in the offing. There will be lot of agitations afterwards. But we need to look at things more realistically. If KSEB can't make itself at least in break-even position, the state is in for a shock, literally! I hope the alternating governments led by two major political fronts in kerala will set apart their traditional enimity and look at things with eagerness to long term solutions rather than short term political mileage.
It should be emphasised that whenever a powercut occurs, merchant establishments as well as apartments switch to diesel/kerosine based power generators. They are highly costly and produce more harm to environment than thermal power plants. In the interest of all, it might be better if we can make appropriate hike in tariff than to allow load shedding to progressivel increase to 24 hours a day.
On the other hand, it is important for kerala to nurture cordial industrial atmosphere so that there can be more balance in the peak - off peak demand ratio. The continuous factories normally have their own captive power generation capability or at least will be in aposition to buy at higher rate.
Hmm, i guess this had been pretty long. Better stop than to bore you further........
Monday, November 3, 2008
Veendum Oru Kerala piravi dinam kadannu poyi....!
The state of Kerala has become older by one more year yesterday. It is prudent to have a critical look at our state of affairs. Many other states of India too celebrate the birth day on the same date. If we talk about the development that we had vis-a-vis other states, we can't see something which we can be proud of. Whatever fronts Kerala topped the list in yesteryears, other states are catching up fast. Moreoever they in fact have overtook Kerala in many fronts. The industry, food production, live stock etc have gone to minimal levels. Kerala is truly a consumer state. Whenever there is a interstate transportation problem, we get affected to a great extent. Add to it the very frequent hartal & bandh within kerala. The industrial set up is virtually non-existent. I think the only industry that Kerala has as of now is the tourism industry. Even though Keralites excel in the per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages, there are not many breweries inside kerala. Owing to the wide spread diaspora, money comes into kerala at the cost of probably relations & kerala continues to lead its pitiable consumeristic life style. Most of the guys and gals in the working age are outside kerala. We mostly children and aged persons living there. Malayali is afraid of any physical labour once inside Kerala. So we have people coming from other parts of India. Last time when i visited Ernakulam, i was astonished to find so many people from UP, Rajasthan, Orissa & West Bengal right in the city. The whole construction industry is manned by them.
Lets see where kerala is headed to in the long run!
Lets see where kerala is headed to in the long run!
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