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Journalism of Courage
As in any high value, high profile project that is not going well, Sasan Power has been generating numerous whispers. As is normally the official response, an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) was set up when the whispers got loud. But now that the EGoM has decided to cancel Lanco Infratech’s bid for Sasan on the grounds of ‘misrepresentation’ and the law ministry is reportedly in favour of re-tendering, empowered ministers must read some recent policy history. Political favouritism and corporate skulduggery were alleged during evaluation of airport modernisation bids. A government review committee, an inter-ministerial group and finally an EGoM were formed. But, in the end, the government held its nerve, did not announce another bidding process and awarded the contracts. An Anil
Ambani group company, one of the losers, went to the courts but they upheld the government decision. That was a fine example of pragmatic official courage.
Now consider another story. When Dayanidhi Maran was telecom minister, BSNL floated a tender for expanding its cellular network, with emphasis on building capacity for third generation (3G) services. But when DMK’s A. Raja replaced DMK’s Maran as minister, the former questioned the price (Motorola, the original lowest bidder, had been disqualified by BSNL) and wanted fresh tenders. Reportedly BSNL’s board has decided to honour the minister. The tender has been halved, price re-negotiations are to begin and 3G plans have been shelved. As our columnist today points out, on the ground the delay over starting work on expansion means large swathes of rural India will have to continue to suffer from connectivity problems. BSNL itself has suffered, falling behind sharply in terms of new subscriber additions and since 3G lines are now a matter of a fresh tender, its ability to compete with other phone companies will also suffer. Whatever the amount Raja argued will be saved by changing the terms is wiped out many times over by delay-induced losses.
No one needs to emphasise how critical power supply is for India’s present and future, how critical is the success of Sasan Power — which is expected to feed eight states in northern, central and western India — for the overall ultra mega power project plan and what the costs of further delay will be. So before any decision on cancelling the whole process is taken, ministers must draw the right lessons from the airport and BSNL stories.
