A question of reliance

Published : Aug 26, 2005 00:00 IST

Anil Ambani. -

Anil Ambani. -

Kurla - Cut off from the city for three days. No power for almost five days.

Kalina - No power in some areas for a week.

Ghatkopar - No power in some areas for a week to 10 days.

Juhu - No power in municipal hospital. No treatment could be administered to a patient in a critical condition.

Andheri - No power for 30 hours.

(The Reliance Energy Limited (REL)-owned BSES provides electricity to all these areas.)

SURE the company did a wise thing by cutting off electricity supply when the rain began to inundate the areas it serves. But why was it unable to restore power within a reasonable amount of time when the water began to recede? ask REL subscribers. After all, the government-run Maharashtra State Distribution Company (a recently created entity after the Maharashtra State Electricity Board was unbundled) was able to restore power within 24 hours to many affected areas. Customers were irked by the fact that REL did not even set up a helpline to offer information or assistance, was inaccessible and did not put out any information on the power situation. The MSEB officials, on the other hand, met the media almost daily.

Eventually, REL did restore power to about 80 per cent of its subscribers. But it was only after the company came under immense pressure. A show-cause notice sent by the Mumbai Suburban Collector asking the company why action should not be taken against it for not restoring power, forced Reliance to gather itself. It was clear that government-run MSEB coped better with the disaster than a supposedly efficient private company. Several reasons have been offered for Reliance's inability to cope. A major and rather simplistic one is that private companies cut back on resources such as manpower in their profit-making schemes. Reliance did not have the resources to handle the crisis.

For the several thousands of people who walked up to 50 kilometres in pouring rain only to find their houses in complete darkness and without drinking water (the municipality could not pump water owing to the power failure) the callousness of Reliance was shocking. Said Amit Khullar: "Our houses were flooded, the roads were blocked, phones were not working - we found it miserable. We had no idea about the power situation. Even an announcement on the radio would have been enough."Khullar who had walked almost the entire distance from his office in south Mumbai to his home in Bandra, a northwest suburb, said he could not imagine the plight of people who were unable to afford bottled drinking water or the elderly who had to climb 30 floors to reach their houses. The people of Mumbai are not used to electricity cuts.

The Rs.9,200-crore REL bought BSES in 2003 and has since serviced 24 lakh subscribers across Mumbai's suburbs, essentially to all the areas that were affected by the July 26 deluge. The power utility switched off supplies as a precautionary measure. During the floods, REL patted itself on the back for taking timely action. In fact, it publicly announced that it "saved millions of lives by cutting off power supply. Not a single death has occurred due to electrocution".

However, when it failed to restore supply mainly owing to its inability to fix transformers that had been submerged or affected by water, the company became silent.

According to Minister for Energy Dilip Walse-Patil, REL declined the MSEB's offer of assistance. But eventually, the Managing Director of MSEB helped sort out the mess. The MSEB's gangmen were roped in to pull out cables and clean up transformers. Officers were sent to the field to take stock of the situation. Reliance was pulled up for its callousness in handling the situation. "We have spoken to them in the language they understand," Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told mediapersons.

After this, a helpline was put up overnight. Reliance officials suddenly became available to the media. REL managing director Anil Ambani held a press conference, the first since the disaster, in which he dramatically declared, "Arrest me, I am available." Ambani pledged Rs.100 crores towards a disaster management plan. He assured his subscribers that the company was working on a war-footing to restore power. He denied any negligence on the part of the company saying that the disaster was unpredictable and the intensity not understood.

REL has about 4,050 transformers in the city and almost all of them were affected. The equipment can be restarted only when they are clean and dry. "We could not do that for many days. It is not safe to start a wet transformer," said Satish Seth, a senior REL executive. However, a daily newspaper reported that REL had no back-up equipment. When it took over BSES, the company got rid of old transformers as a cost-cutting measure.

"Anil Ambani will be out before he goes in," said A.D Golandez, secretary of the All India Federation of Electricity Employees. "Definitely REL is a powerful company but this time it could not come out of the situation," he said. Golandez, who has worked in BSES for 39 years, said REL did not have the expertise to deal with the crisis. "The main problem is the company did not have the manpower." According to him, four years ago BSES had 4,600 employees. Today there are hardly 3,000. REL has filled top positions with management graduates who do not have any knowledge of how basic electric equipment works. The company has no respect for its chief engineers and engineers, who in other electricity companies hold top positions. "How can you run an efficient company or cope with a disaster when your top management does not have a grip at the ground level?" Golandez asked.

"The lack of coordination among the staff, the fact that instructions come only from the top and the reluctance to take government help was what really led Reliance into the mess," he said. Flooding is not an unnatural phenomenon in the areas served by REL. Had it been better prepared some of the damage could have been easily stemmed.

Vivek Monteiro of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions said: "Private companies work on a strict principle of putting money where they can make money." Disaster preparedness or the need to keep resources - human and otherwise - is not commercially viable. In privatisation, it is human resource that is affected first.

The MSEB suffered huge losses - 5,667 of its transformers were affected, 12 high-tension towers fell and 14 small distribution stations were flooded - but it was able to restore power within 24 hours in most places. "Our priority was to get drinking water schemes started and then we tackled the rest," said Jayant Kawale, the managing director of MSEB. "For a change people are appreciating our efforts." Kawale said MSEB officers, engineers and gangmen were deployed across the State and told to do whatever it takes to restore power. The MSEB's men used ropes to climb a hill to reach a small town cut off by landslides. One engineer even swam across a river to pull out a jammed cable. The MSEB serves the whole of Maharashtra except Mumbai and parts of Pune.

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