Energy Security through Privatisation: Policy Insights from Hydroelectric Power Projects HEPs in India’s Northeast1

Abstract

The question of India’s energy security, and by extension growth and national development, has been addressed in recent years through extensive power sector reforms organised around the modalities of privatisation and deregulation. Such policies have incentivised the entry of independent power producers as important stakeholders in the energy sector and helped establish a specific convergence between two arenas: that is, the linking of energy security imperatives with the commercialisation of natural resources and development projects. Based on empirical research in India’s northeastern Himalayan region, this paper reviews the country’s hydroelectric power policies, their recent implementation methods and the range of socio-economic and ecological concerns that have surfaced through anti-dam movements in response to hydroelectric power projects HEPs . This paper suggests that the instances of socioeconomic dislocations and ecological hazards ensuing from development projects like the HEPs, specifically given the existence of statemandated counter-mechanisms to prevent such problems, are not cases of “implementation gaps”, but rather are manifestations of a deeper crisis in the policy framework that has prioritised the commercialisation of resources and privatisation of mega-projects to achieve energy security

Keywords

• Energy security, development, India, HEP

References

1. I thank the BRICS Policy Center (BPC) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for a research fellowship that made this work possible. I extend my gratitude to the faculty, staff, students, and research assistants at the BPC for their immense support for this project.
2. Government of India (GOI), The Planning Commission, 2002, “Report of the Committee on India: Vision 2020”, at http://www.teindia.nic.in/Files/Reports/CCR/pl_vsn2020.pdf [last visited 14 November 2013].
3. See, Government of India, Policy for Hydro Power Development, 1998. Also see, World Bank, Development and Growth in Northeast India: The Natural Resources, Water, and Environment Nexus, Washington, DC, June 2007.
4. Shripad Dharmadhikary, “Corporate Interests Rise Above All”, India Together, 6 May 2013.
5. Payal Banerjee and Atul Sood, “The Political Economy of Green Growth in India”, UNRISD Occasional Paper Number 5, Geneva, The United Nations, 2012; Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha, The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India, London and New York, Routledge, 1995; Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari, Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India, New Delhi, Viking/Penguin, 2012.
6. The author conducted qualitative research in the eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim in August 2011 and from August 2012 to present.
7. Government of India (GOI), Ministry of Power, Data for 2010, at www.powermin.nic.in [last visited 23 June 2013].
8. The Government of India, Policy for Hydro Power Development, p. 1, at http://www.nhpcindia. com [last visited 23 June 2013]. 10 Ibid.

9. movements against dams and other mega-projects have had a long history in India and these
10. have intensified over the recent years. For more details, the reader may consult A Calendar of Resistance: A Resource Book, Intercultural Resources, New Delhi, India, 2010. For more information, see, www.icrindia.org.
11. International Rivers, “Mountains of Concrete: Dam Building in the Himalayas”, at www. internationalrivers.org [last visited on 20 January 2014].
12. Author’s interviews. Also, Dhiraj Kumar Sarma, “Big Dams, Big Dilemmas?”, Eclectic NorthEast (July 2013), p. 26-36.
13. See, Ministry of Environment and Forests, at http://envfor.nic.in/about-ministry/about- ministry [last visited 12 January 2014].
14. For more details, see Government of India’s Ministry of Tribal Affairs at http://tribal.nic.in/ index.asp [last visited 12 January 2014].
15. Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari, Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India, New Delhi, Viking/Penguin, 2012.
16. Ananthakrishnan Aiyer, “The Allure of the Transnational: Notes on Some Aspects of the Political Economy of Water in India”, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 22, No. 4 (November 2007), pp. 640-658.
17. Shrivastava and Kothari, Churning the Earth. 31 Ibid.
18. Pradeep Balsakh, “Is the Forest Rights Act Working?”, India Together, 17 May 2011.
19. Shrivastava and Kothari, Churning the Earth.
20. Moneycontrol Investment News, “Cos May Produce Oil, Gas Before Investment Plans Cleared”, at http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/cos-may-produce-oil-gas-before- investment-plans-cleared_975289.html?utm_source=MC_Mail_Stock_watch [last visited 24 October 2013].
21. Soumik Dutta, “Hydro Power Projects violating SC Order in Sikkim: NBWL Report”, at [last visited 9 November 2013]; Jay Mazoomdar, “Sikkim Constructing Hydel Projects in Violation of SC Order”, Tehelka Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 42 (19 October 2013).
22. Ashok Sreenivas and N. Sreekumar, “Private Investment Not a Panacea for All Ills”, India Together, 4 October 2013.
23. Sreenivas and Sreekumar, “Private Investment Not a Panacea for All Ills”.
24. This observation is based on SIBLAC’s anti-dam campaign flier distributed at one of the major monasteries located in the capital city in 2010.