The clearance by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) cleared last 31 December a plan-budget of Rs 50 billion over five years since 2016 is now being followed by implementation. It is a prospective phenomenon in the islands long over-due.

By 2017, the remote citizens of the 572 islands – India’s southeast border archipelago – now may hope to look up to a different world than what they had lived in for over a few centuries.

The 4,200MW capacity of solar power generation is aimed for homes, government buildings, and institutional sectors. Yet the catch for them is: whether it is just another hyperbolic lip-service by the people in power.

According to the CCEA plan, the 4,200MWroof-top facilities would also create tertiary opportunities for the inhabitants and a market for them.

NTPC, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and Rajasthan Electronics and Infrastructure Ltd (REIL) have been assigned tasks in two phases to build up 100MW solar park project in the islands.

For the Phase-I, over 47 hectares of land have been handed over to the three companies, of which NTPC gets 42 hectares. NTPC would construct 20MW solar power plant at Mittakhari. The project has been tasked to be completed by 2017.

The REIL has been given 5.3 hectares of lands at popular Havelock and Neil Island to construct between the plots 2.5MW of solar power plant.

In the Phase-II, the three companies have been allotted 145 hectares of land to cover with the rest of 80MW solar power plants. The Phase-II is tasked to be completed by 2019.

According to the Andaman’s BJP MP, Bishnu Pada Roy, “These are the first phase of the many moves to bring electricity to the islands’ citizens, that are coming”.

Anybody who might have run into Roy would have found an active man with impatience for making things done. In few quick words he makes his mind clear to his listeners, that he means business.

Vexed at never-ending promises and hyperboles to the Islands’ citizens, Roy says, “Much could have been done already in last 68 years. We started doing all this soon after coming to power since 1999. Atalji started the real moves by granting funds and poking all of us for grassroots development in this area. We shall see that the three companies complete their jobs within the assigned time, and I greatly hope to get support from the administration in this regard.”

Ironical to Tourism Department’s signature call ‘Incredible India’, this exotic Indian tourist archipelago was always exposed to incredible administrative irregularities, creating a look of ‘Incredible India’ of different connotation.

The issues of electricity and infrastructure — the nervous system of any civilization — were seldom handled in cost-effective manner. To the benefits of the tribal communities, there has been almost no-electricity. Ironically when the exotic islands of the entire world have been steadily moving toward harnessing green technology for energy generation, India continued to invest in fossil fuels like coal, oil and diesel.

Even in the recent past, the Indian government’s power generation policies flouted what Nobel laureate (2001) economist Joseph E Stiglitz says in a recent article, ‘The New Geo-Economics’ (to Project Syndicate): “The world is moving, inexorably, toward a green economy. One day not too far off, fossil fuel will be largely a thing of the past. So anyone who invests in coal now does so at his or her peril.”

Today, Indian governance lacks the world-class quality, required for invincible security of India’s oceanic borders. For India, the CCEA move is a late start-up, as always. However, better late than never.

The report by a foreign magazine (The Diplomat dated 03 January 2016) on this southeast border of India maybe an eye-opener for the fun-loving elitist tourists, but the islanders know it through their bones, yet they do not have a voice to speak.

Their representatives did never have the force to make the Central Government work for the islands the way it should have. The administration and Central ministers occasionally issued lopsided lip-services in future tense about electricity and infrastructure, even as huge amount was already invested for standing sprawling assets without people’s use.

Abandoned by the British as the penal centre for the quarantined freedom fighters, development did not reach this pristine location of India even after the Raj left the country 68 years ago. Electricity has not been granted to the impoverished inhabitants without a hefty premium. It is through diesel pumps at a cost of Rs 30 a unit. And diesel pollutes.

During the Raj, the archipelago was also used with tyrannical abandon as a fun-spot for escapades of the British tommies. Whatever infrastructure was constructed was to suit the Raj governance of the time.

The Andamans offer unique ecosystems for anthropological and environmental studies, striking marine biotechnological experiments, opportunities for green electricity generation, oceanic research, underwater wildlife investigation and strategic necessities for security of India.
As is pointed out by the foreign journal’s research, the archipelago mostly goes to sleep after the fall of the dark, and that is definitely not an example of good governance.

Electricity is closely related to the issues of transmission lines and for them the issue of availability of roads. Let us discuss this in the next story. (IPA Service)