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Thread: India unveils $2.5 billion plan to electrify all households by end 2018

  1. #1

    India unveils $2.5 billion plan to electrify all households by end 2018

    https://in.reuters.com/article/india...-idINKCN1C029S

    SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

    NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a $2.5 billion project to electrify all of the country’s households by the end of 2018.

    More than 40 million households - about a quarter of all in the country - are yet to be electrified and about 300 million of India’s 1.3 billion people are still not hooked up to the grid.

    The states will need to complete the electrification by December 2018 and the government will identify those eligible for free electricity connections across the country.

    “No fee will be charged for electricity connection in households of poor citizens,” Modi said at an event where he launched the project.

    The project, which will be mostly funded by the federal government and run by the state-run Rural Electrification Corp Ltd, also aims to cut use of kerosene, the government said.

    The pledge to provide power could face challenges as it remains difficult to provide electricity in remote towns and villages. The government said it would distribute solar power packs with a battery bank to un-electrified households in such areas.

    Another challenge will be to fix finances of debt-laden power distribution companies in states that struggle to buy and supply electricity to consumers.

    Ashok Khurana, director general of industry body Association of Power Producers, said the government must take steps to improve the financial health of such companies if the new programme is to be a success.

    Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Mohi Narayan; Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Mark Potter



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  3. #2
    This will be another disaster somehow.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

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    Alexis de Torqueville

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    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    This will be another disaster somehow.
    Why? whatever could go wrong?

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    This will be another disaster somehow.
    The government said it would distribute solar power packs with a battery bank to un-electrified households in such areas.
    Which people will promptly sell for food.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    Why? whatever could go wrong?
    Can you imagine being an electrician there? I'd rather work on a bomb squad.

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"



  7. #6
    India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched a $2.5 billion project to electrify all of the country’s households by the end of 2018.

    More than 40 million households - about a quarter of all in the country - are yet to be electrified and about 300 million of India’s 1.3 billion people are still not hooked up to the grid.
    Am I reading this right?? $62.50 to hook up each household?! They must be getting some deal on poles, wires, and transformers!!! Not to mention the substations! Then, there's this:

    Another challenge will be to fix finances of debt-laden power distribution companies in states that struggle to buy and supply electricity to consumers.
    Well, not sure how you're going to fix a debt problem by forcing those companies to build out the grid for much less than they'll gain in return.
    "And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat

    "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    This will be another disaster somehow.
    HOPEFULLY!


  9. #8
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    http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/1.../1/356813.html

    A goat, retard and Gangu Teli: 15 names Narendra Modi has been called by rivals

    Name calling has become a part and parcel of this election. Not a single day goes by when some politician or the other doesn't call another politician something.



    IndiaToday.in

    New Delhi, April 21, 2014 | UPDATED 15:24 IST


    A +A -



    Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi





    Name calling has become a part and parcel of this election. Not a single day goes by when some politician or the other doesn't call another politician something.
    Narendra Modi" title="Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi" style="padding: 0px; margin: 2px 0px; box-sizing: initial !important; border: 1px solid rgb(215, 215, 215); outline: 0px; width: 652px;">
    Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi

    The latest politician to indulge in such name calling was Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh who referred to the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as a goat. He said, "Modi doesn't talk about forming a BJP government. He only talks about forming his government. He speaks only in terms of 'main, main, main' as if he's a goat."






    Ajit Singh was speaking at a rally in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on Sunday.
    Here's a list of things that Narendra Modi has been called:
    1. Goat: By Ajit Singh at a rally in Aligarh, UP.

    2. Man of damage to India: By Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
    3. The elder brother of a puppy/fascist: By Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan.
    4. Impotent, Frog, Monkey: By Salman Khurshid in various speeches, media addresses.
    5. Murderer: By Beni Prasad Verma.
    6. Compulsive liar and encounter chief minister: By P Chidamabaram.
    7. Dictator: Various Congress leaders have referred to Modi with this title.
    8. Hitler: By Sharad Pawar.
    9. A predator and a tyrant: By Haji Yaqub, the BSP's candidate from Moradabad, UP, during an election rally.
    10. Mass murderer: By Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
    11. Mentally retarded: By Gujarat Congress chief Arjun Modhwadia.
    12. Gangu Teli: By Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
    13. Bhasmasur: By Union Cabinet Minister Jairam Ramesh.
    14. Ravan: By Digvijay Singh.

    15. Snake, scorpion, dirty old man: By senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.








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  11. #9
    To balance the name calling a bit:

    Bill Gates praises PM Modi’s efforts to end open defecation in India - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ation-in-India

  12. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    To balance the name calling a bit:

    Bill Gates praises PM Modi’s efforts to end open defecation in India - http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...ation-in-India
    View: Jobs are Modi's central mission, and he's failing. Read how

    Bloomberg|
    Updated: May 26, 2017, 06.43 PM IST

    101
    101Comments

    Modi seems to realise that he hasn’t moved swiftly enough to create jobs, which could cost him when he runs for re-election in 2019.
    By Mihir Sharma

    Three years ago, Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister of the Republic of India amid much hope and tremendous expectation. A good portion of the population remains optimistic that he’ll fulfill his promises to unshackle the Indian economy. But Modi’s tenure cannot yet be judged a success for one central reason: He’s signally failed to create jobs for the desperate young people who gave him his massive mandate.

    Modi’s landslide victory in 2014 was bigger than any seen in India for three decades. His Bharatiya Janata Party took home an unprecedented majority of seats in the lower house of India’s parliament, which meant that he was free to act without having to consult coalition partners. What’s more, he won the election more or less single-handedly. Voters, especially in India’s poor and under-employed north, thrilled to his personality and pledges of economic and political revival.

    Three years in, some important steps forward have been taken, including the passage of a landmark reform of indirect taxes. Foreign investors remain bullish on the country.

    Yet Modi’s jobs record is even poorer than that of the much-maligned Congress government that his replaced. India needs to create as many as a million new jobs every month just to keep up with the growing population. Under Modi, just over 10,000 jobs a month are being created instead, according to government figures from 2015. The scale of this failure is enormous -- especially since it will add to the angry army of already underemployed young Indians.

    The reforms needed to spur real job growth are simple to lay out. The government needs to reform itself -- starting with creating a less-intrusive regulatory state and a more accountable tax bureaucracy. In particular, factor markets like those for land and labour need to be swiftly made more flexible nationwide, so that business becomes more competitive. India’s troubled state-owned banks need to have their books cleaned up and, ideally, be privatised or forced to shrink. The government needs to free up capital by borrowing less, and foreign investment into infrastructure must be prioritised.




    On most of these fronts, progress has been shaky or nonexistent. Many observers have judged Modi leniently, arguing he hasn’t had the political capital needed to make drastic changes. Modi certainly didn’t worry about political capital last November, though, when he took the puzzling and destructive step of rendering 86 percent of India’s currency illegal overnight. Far from paying a political price for a decision with a poor economic outcome, Modi and his party were rewarded with another unprecedented victory in state elections a few months later.

    Modi seems to realise that he hasn’t moved swiftly enough to create jobs, which could cost him when he runs for re-election in 2019. That may be why his party and government have subtly changed the emphasis of their promises to the electorate. There is much more talk now of protecting cows -- sacred to many Hindus -- and of defending India’s interests in Kashmir.

    In terms of economics, too, a subtle shift is visible. In Modi’s first year, the government decided on a manufacturing push; the slogan-loving prime minister called it the “Make in India” program. But the lack of fundamental structural reform has stalled that initiative: The share of manufacturing in India’s gross value added has barely increased.

    Instead, Modi has lately been placing less emphasis on formal jobs -- with salaries and promotion prospects and pensions -- and more on what he calls the “personal sector”: small-scale entrepreneurship. Some of his initiatives -- such as a scheme to hand out loans to fund small businessmen -- have replaced “Make in India” as the government’s primary talking points.

    The government would argue that this is where most Indians are currently employed. But that isn’t where new jobs need to be created. While India’s informal economy has shown robust growth for decades, it’s simply not growing at the speed needed to create a China-like transformation. That needs a more formal economy.

    Not to mention, the kinds of jobs the informal sector tends to generate are insecure, and fail to create a ladder to prosperity for unskilled workers. No lower-middle-income country can ascend to middle-income status without generating mass employment, which in turn requires a dynamic manufacturing sector. Given the quickening pace of automation, India has precious little time left to ramp up industrialisation.

    Perhaps the focus on small entrepreneurs, together with a renewed commitment to welfarism, will be enough for Modi to survive 2019. But India’s prime minister once seemed like the country’s only hope for transformative growth. It looks like he’s abandoned that quest -- and India’s future looks much bleaker than it did in 2014.

    (This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.)




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