30 Jul 2007

While private entrepreneurs get a piece of the action in last-mile power reforms of Uttar Pradesh, women in India’s hilly inaccessible terrain can now stake their claim to turning entrepreneurs as well. In yet another public private partnership (PPP), Uttarakhand will soon be using ‘woman power’ to ensure steady and swift electricity bill collections by appointing woman self help groups (SHGs) in the state as authorised franchisees.

Over the next two months, the state plans to kick off the woman-friendly franchisee model in 12 sample areas and extend the model throughout all 10 districts of the state by the end of this financial year. “Instead of appointing private entrepreneurs as franchisees for revenue collection at different electrical sub-stations, we are looking at nominating women SHGs to perform the task,” said B M Verma, chairman and managing director, Uttarakhand Power Corp Ltd (UPCL). “This would achieve a dual purpose of women empowerment through gainful employment, as well as timely and efficient bill collection.”

The ‘collection-based’ franchisee model being used to rope in women SHGs works on an incentive-based scheme. In a state like Uttarakhand, where average collection efficiency (that is actual money recovered versus amount billed) stands at around 60 per cent, these SHGs will be given incremental commissions for bettering collection efficiency.

So, in an area that has a current collection efficiency of 60 per cent, the commission offered to the SHG for maintaining that efficiency would be between 8-9 per cent. A jump in collection efficiency to 70 per cent would mean an ensuing rise in commission to 10 per cent of bill collections. A 70-80 per cent collection efficiency would result in a commission of 12 per cent. While a detailed commission structure is yet to be finalised, the graded incentive scheme that would finally be implemented would be along these lines.

The preference accorded to women SHGs in this scheme is an outcome of successful participation with them in the past. A year ago, Uttarakhand appointed women SHGs in 9,500 rural villages, the task of electricity meter reading, installation, bill disbursement and monitoring of power theft.

A total of 31 SHGs, covering over 2.25 lakh consumers in all 10 districts of the state were roped into the project and paid for their services. UPCL offered these SHGs Rs 6 for every meter reading, Rs 2 per bill distribution, Rs 50 for regularisation of every illegal connection or getting a new connection, and Rs 60 to replace faulty or un-metered connections. Through such incentives, each member of these SHGs earned between Rs 500 and Rs 3,000 a month.

While women were empowered, the state’s revenues from electricity bill collections jumped as well. According to Verma, “In Koddwar area of Uttarakhand, the revenue collected last year went up from Rs 67 lakh to Rs 85 lakh. The revenues collected in the rest of the state have also jumped by 25 per cent.”

However, a few hiccups remain for these SHGs in the form of bank guarantees that are to be furbished before being allowed to collect bills. While typically a bank guarantee amounting to two months of current collections at a substation is demanded, SHGs do not have the reserves to furbish the same. Verma says deliberations are on to rope in cooperative societies and regional rural banks to facilitate this and UPCL may also contemplate doing away with the requirement altogether.

At the same time, UPCL is also contemplating converting the ‘collection-based franchisees’ to ‘input-based franchisees’ over the next year. This would mean that women SHGs then take up a greater risk of paying the power utility for a dedicated supply of electricity at the start of every month, and ensure their profits through aggressive bill collections. Who said entrepreneurship, women empowerment and PPPs can’t go together?

News Source: http://www.indianexpress.com

31 Jul 2007

After celebrating one of the highest recorded tiger densities in India this year, the high-profile Corbett Tiger Reserve is back in the news for all the wrong reasons.

The Uttarakhand government has built a cement road through the heart of the tiger reserve, along an alignment which the government had long expressed a desire to build a tarred road but is still being contested in the courts.

A petition had been filed in this regard before the centrally empowered committee of the Supreme Court on forestry issues.

The SC appointed CEC is now slated to make a spot assessment of the tiger reserve before it recommends further action to the apex court.

State forest officials admitted that mandatory permission from the chief wildlife warden or the director of the tiger reserve was not taken before building the road as required by the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

The construction of the road is also not scheduled in the management plan which is mandated as compulsory to undertake any activity within a protected forest area.

However, state forest officials claimed that the road being a project ordered by the Uttarakhand government, it did not require any further clearances.

The state government has launched a multi-crore project to build roads through all forest areas in order to connect ‘fringe areas’ from where it claims Maoist activity has been reported.

But sources in the government told TOI that the quality of work was so bad that the newly-constructed road had given in to the monsoon showers in one portion, rendering even patrolling by the forest department difficult, which was being undertaken year-round previously even on the kutcha road.

News Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Dehradun, 29 Jul 2007

With an increasing number of locals in Uttarakhand vying each other for high-rise buildings, the lives of several people in Dehradun, are under threat as the region lies in the earthquake prone zone. Officials with the Geological Survey of India have observed that unavailability of land is the root cause of the problem. As such, there has been excessive vertical expansion for the construction of houses and other buildings.

Dr P. C. Nawani, Director of Geological Survey of India in Dehradun, said. “Since land is not available, multi-storeyed buildings are being made. The evaluation about where there should be multi-storeyed, single-storeyed or green belt has been made in the reports. If an earthquake occurs, the areas likely to be affected have been stated.”According to Minister for Disaster Management, Diwakar Bhatt, constructions at the village outskirts that are not under seismic zone cause much disaster to the areas during earthquakes.

Bhatt said: “As far as my village is concerned, the constructions have been done considering the earth-quake factor. These things can come in areas around such villages that are being used for tourism, developmental works, housing and lodging. I have asked for a report stating how much of damage it would create and affect the administration.”

Many residents are urging the Government to refrain from permitting house construction exceeding the fixed limit not exceeding the standard two to three storeys.

Chandra Singh, a resident, said: “Four to five storeys are not good. Earthquake can occur anytime, which will create a lot of destruction. Two to three storeys should be made. Since, it comes under seismic zone, permission to make multi-storeys should not be given.”Many people maintain that the State Government and the local administration are responsible for such disasters, since a commoner is often unaware of the catastrophic effects.

Hoshiarchand Ramoul, another resident, said: “The government authorities are equally culprit as much as the people constructing such buildings are. The government should check how much is okay in hilly areas like Mussoorie, Chamba, New Tehri and Uttarkashi. Those exceeding the limit should be banned and strict action should be taken against them.”

There are on an average 200 quakes of small magnitude that occur annually in the Uttarakhand region alone.

News Source: http://www.dailyindia.com

23 Jul 2007

Every year some 600,000 pilgrims make their way through the Valley of Flowers in the Indian Himalayas, and until recently, left behind a trail of garbage. Now the Valley and the adjoining Nanda Devi National Park has been cleaned and restored, thanks to the efforts of a diminutive female Forest Reserve Officer, Jyotsna Sitling, recipient of this year’s prestigious Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar, the country’s highest environmental honour.

The ecologically sensitive 19-kilometre buffer zone of the Valley of Flowers stretches along the trek route from Govindghat to Hemkund Sahib. But the annual pilgrim traffic had wrecked its beautiful surroundings,with an accumulated trail of plastic bags, bottles, raincoats and other non-degradable waste.

Jyotsna Sitling is the proud recipient of this year’s prestigious Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar, the country’s highest environmental honour.

Jyotsna Sitling, 45, not only began a restoration project in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand but has helped win the Valley of Flowers World Heritage Site status. She has also set in motion a unique conservation movement that has helped save the ecologically fragile Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve.

Sitling’s assignment involved ridding the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve buffer zone of the mountain-high piles of plastic and non-biodegradable waste, which had been dumped by pilgrims over the last three decades on their way to Hemkund Sahib. But this could not be possible without local support so she painstakingly evolved a community-based waste management programme.

Mountain of rubbish

“Initially, it was difficult to motivate people for such unglamorous work. But since it could never have happened without community participation, we just plunged into it,” says Sitling. To start, Sitling put together an eco-development committee of locals, and hired garbage collectors who worked for a monthly salary of Rs 1,000 (US$1=Rs 40) with an additional commission of Rs 5 per garbage bag.

After working for 14 months, Sitling’s ragtag team collected 44 tons of garbage in 14,000 gunny bags. Tons of mule dung were also collected, as about 500 mules make daily to-and-fro trips during the five-month pilgrimage season. “The collected garbage matched the surrounding mountains in their height!” laughs Sitling.

The filth was then transported on horseback to Govindghat and then to Delhi for recycling. And despite the magnitude of garbage, no short cuts like burning or burying were resorted to.

But cleaning up the area was only a part of Sitling’s daunting mission. Her greater challenge lay in convincing the resident business population – about 76 families in all – to demolish their 400 shacks and morph them into 76 shops – one shop per family. This, Sitling insisted, would help in the better management of the ecologically sensitive area. After much convincing, they agreed to convert their shacks into well-equipped shops with proper infrastructure.

Popular peaks

Matters were complicated by the fact that the buffer area was shared by the two parks, the Valley and the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, with its 47 villages. Both parks, administered by the wildlife section of the Uttarakhand’s Forest Department, had been subject to damaging mountaineering activity from 1939 onwards.

This led to the shutting down of Nanda Devi for all anthropogenic activities in 1983. But since the region’s popular peaks were mostly within the Park, the directive deprived the villagers of their income.

“The conflict of interest between the state’s conservation strategy and local livelihoods led to an estranged park management-public relationship for over 20 years,” explains Sitling.

To make matters worse, the Valley of Flowers National Park – 87.5 sq km valley within the upper Himalayan ridges at a height of 3,200 to 6,675 metres – had its own set of conservation concerns. Some 520 species of flowering plants and rare avifauna like the Scaly-bellied woodpecker, Great Barbett, Eurasian Eagle Owl, Spotted Dove and the Blue Magpie can be found here.

“The task was Herculean,”says Sitling. “Especially since the area’s ecosystem was in tatters and motivation low among the locals.” Moreover, the work required the co-operation of various agencies and involved sensitive livelihood and ecological issues.

Eco-tourism activities

That was the main reason why Sitling called for a participatory approach. Her department crafted “mini pockets” of 40 ‘van’ (forest) Panchayats and 60 ‘mahila mandal dals’ (women’s group squads) to “make conservation a socially and economically self-alleviating experience for the locals”.

“The idea was to integrate livelihood and equity concerns in conservation practices for a long-term solution,” says Sitling.

Training was provided to harness local resources and generate eco-tourism activities. The growing and preserving of medicinal plants, exotic condiments and traditional crops were made a priority. This stimulated the hill economy and helped prevent poaching and illegal uprooting of herbs from nearby forests. Communities were also encouraged to document and preserve their culture and folklore. Young people became a skilled resource on local bio-diversity, folklore and culture promotion.

The forest department’s pioneering efforts in environmental protection and conservation through community participation were first recognised in 2004 when the Sitling was given a state award on Sitling on June 5, World Environment Day.

Years of hard work started to bear fruit when the region’s ecosystem, too, demonstrated signs of regeneration. Sitling’s department nominated the Valley of Flowers to the UN’s World Heritage list in 2002. On July 14, 2005, UNESCO informed Sitling of the conferring of World Heritage Status to the Valley of Flowers National Park. Apart from it being a global honour, the World Heritage award has helped Uttarakhand attract a many more international tourists and global conservation funds.

“Our unique experiment,” discloses Sitling, “has shown that there’s nothing which can’t be achieved if people choose to work together, no matter what the obstacles.”

Source: Women’s Feature Service
News Source: http://www.peopleandplanet.net

22 Jul 2007

While the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) announces several successive projects to connect state capitals with the Golden Quadrilateral, many of its showcase projects are caught in a delay. The reason — tenders floated are not eliciting the right response. The project to connect New Delhi to Dehradun is languishing for nearly a year now.

The 220-km Meerut-Dehradun stretch, a two-lane road along NH 58 which was to be four laned under National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) Phase III, is stuck because NHAI received only a single bid for the tenders.

“Tenders were invited in 2006 but only one bid was received. The NHAI will now invite tenders again but that will take time as work on the details is going on, along with formulating a new model – concessionaire agreement. The process will be completed later in this year or early 2008. As there is no deadline, there is no hurry to get the project through,” said a senior official from the Ministry.

The stretch was envisaged as a part of the larger plan of the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways to connect New Delhi with Dehradun and Nainital in Uttarakhand. The Ministry had announced the plans in 2005 as part of the NHDP III A projects. The Uttarakhand Government has also been pushing for the project hoping to add to its tourism potential.

Another project to hit a roadblock is four laning plan for the Jammu-Srinagar highway involving construction of the longest road tunnel from Banihal to Qazigand. The project aimed to make this economic lifeline of the state weather proof and usable through heavy snowfall days is set to get further delayed. “The lowest bid quoted a price which was 40 per cent higher than NHAI estimates. The NHAI is yet to decide whether it will go with this quote or call for re-tendering. J&K project involves construction in very difficult terrains, so it is not easy to get bidders,” the official said.

A 69-km stretch from Hardwar to Dehradun is also pending as tenders are yet to be invited. Work on the Meerut-Muzaffarnagar stretch has hit the slow lane for lack of environmental clearances.

News Source: http://www.indianexpress.com

Dehradun, 05 Jul 07

After sanctioning mega projects as big as the 2,400 MW Tehri hydel project, the Uttarakhand government is now trying to focus on small power plants. These projects would be of .5 to 5 MW of capacity.

For this, the government has joined hands with Infrastructure Leasing and Finance Ltd (ILFS) to conduct a survey and identify the areas where such projects can be constructed.

The survey would be conducted in Nyar, Saryu, Ramganga and Kosi valleys, Additional Chief Secretary Indu Kumar Pandey said.

According to a rough estimate, the government would be generating more than 500 Mw of power once these small hydro projects are constructed in these valleys.

“Through these small projects we will be generating additional power which will also electrify some of the very remote villages of our state,” said Pandey.

Significantly, big dams like Tehri, Loharinag Pala and Maneri Bhali phase II are being built in Bhagirathi and Alaknanda valleys where the water discharge is quite high.

While most of the projects are likely to be handed over to the private sector, some may be given to local cooperatives at village-level.

The government is also keen to replicate in other areas the Karmi village experiment in Bageshwar district where villagers have constructed a small hydel project which is electrifying 5 to 6 villages now.

According to the Uttarakhand budget 2007-08, Uttarakhand has already identified 20,000 MW of hydel power. Nearly 400 projects in this regard have also been identified.

But till now, Uttarakhand is generating only 2819 MW of power. At present, different projects with the capacity of generating 1,1480 MW of power are being built across the state.

News Source: http://www.business-standard.com