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India in the Dark 40pc electricity loss costs it $10b a year

AP, Mumbai
A decade ago, Chandrakant's fishing village in India's financial capital Mumbai lived mostly by candlelight. What people did not have - electricity - they stole.
Today, his settlement has moved up the feeding chain of Mumbai neighbourhoods and most residents have city electricity meters. But the loose habits of the past persist.
Residents still steal power on special occasions, weddings or funerals that need to be lit brighter than their home meters can bear. India's power sector is lousy with thieves. Men like Chandrakant are the least of them.
As much as 40 percent of the power genera ted in India is not paid for. The bulk of it is stolen.
India suffered the worst blackouts in history this week, which left over 600 million people without power. The lights are back on, for now, but the crisis is evidence of deep problems in a sector teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for the second time in a decade.
Investigators have yet to pinpoint the cause of this week's shut-downs. Early, contested reports suggest states were drawing more than their share of power. Scanty rainfall has driven up demand, as farmers switch on electric pumps for irrigation, and crimped hydroelectric supply, which generates about 20 percent of India's electricity.
The deeper problem, however, stems from decades of populist pricing and inefficiency that have pushed losses at state utilities to an estimated $10 billion in die year that ended in March, according to the Planning Commission, a top government advisory body.
In the most recent fiscal year, utilities lost an estimated 1.07 rupees per kilowatt hour, up 40 percent since fiscal 1999.
New Delhi is now contemplating a $21.7 billion bail-out for state utilities, last thrown a lifeline in 2001.
The problem really begins in the ground, with coal.
Coal accounts for more than half of India's electricitysupply.
Efforts to force Coal India - an inefficient government behemoth with a near monopoly on coal mining -
to ramp up supply have foundered. Fights over land acquisition and stalled environmental clearances have made it difficult to open new mines. Power companies now are looking overseas for coal.
In the last four years, the cost to utilities of buying power rose 21 percent - faster than ever before, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers -but they have been unable to pass that on to consumers because of price regulations.
Politicians currying favour with the farm vote have granted free or heavily subsidised power for agriculture, while idealists have fought to bring affordable light to the poor.
Much of rural electricity is unmetered, creating opportunities for abuse.
Kanieswara Rao, executive director of energy, utilities and mining at PricewaterhouseCoopers in India, said India should
force states to raise rates in line with inflation and sell off part of their distribution grids to private companies.
Regulators, however, have been reluctant to raise consumer prices, preferring to push utilities to become more efficient. Slates don't want to cede control of their massive utilities, which rake in billions of dollars in annual revenue.
With their rickety finances, state power companies have not been able to keep pace with rising demand and have expanded the grid faster than they can manage it, analysts said.
Even though Indians use very little energy - per capita consumption is a third of the world average - there is not enough juice to go around. India has allocated 14.5 percent or more of its budget to the power sector since 1969, but has managed to add only half has much capacity as planned for the