The Founder of Akshvi Aware, Vipra Goyal ex IIT talks on Megaprojects in niche areas
Kolkata: The Founder of Akshvi Aware, Vipra Goyal (from IIT, Kharagpur) called for a press conference today at the Press Club, Kolkata. The aim of the press conference was to make the general public aware of the lesser told but Megaprojects of Water, Energy, Dairy, Gas, Organic Farming-Fodder that are in the lurch and on hold. The basic objective was to bring forth the hurdles and to convey the solution for the faster implementation of these Megaprojects.
The Founder of Akshvi Aware gave a PPT presentation in front of the Print and Electronic media.
114 lakh rural families of West Bengal have 70 lakh hectare, i.e. approximately 420 lakh bigha cultivable land and 4.41 crore of livestock. The annual average income of these rural farmers is less than 22000 Rupees. The annual average income of 3600 lakh Indian rural farmers who own 16 lakh hectare cultivable land is 42000 Rupees approximately. Whereas the 3000 lakh farmers of the neighboring country China who own 1189 lakh hectare cultivable land have an average annual income of more than 4 lakh rupees. The three basic needs of agriculture and its allied sectors are Water, Power, Fertiliser, and Fodder. Proper supply of these utilities only can take the annual income up to 9 to 12 lakh Rupees per hectare in the agriculture sector. In West Bengal, the annual average per capita water availability is 700 cubic meters, Power consumption capacity is 655 units and the average income of a rural farmer is 22000 Rupees. In India, it is 1508 cubic meters, 1100 units, 44000 Rupees respectively. In China and America the per capita water availability is 3000 and 8000 cubic meters, Power consumption capacity is 5500 and 13000 unit per-capita and the average income of a rural farmer is 4 lakh and 30 lakh Rupees respectively. There is a strong proportional relationship in the Water and Power consumption capacity Vs living standard. The living standard is directly proportional to the proper and prosperous distribution system of Power and Water. West Bengal lags behind in its living standard by 20 times as compared to its neighboring country China and 10 times as compared to India. In West Bengal state, if the ready Megaprojects related to the proper distribution of Water like Manas-Sankosh-Tista-Ganga link, Ganga-Damodar-Subarnarekha link, FarakkaSunderban link, and Water Diversion & Navigation link in Hugli would have been executed, It would have supplied 5 lakh 63 thousand cubic meters of extra water, annually. Additionally, Canal Top Solar Power Plants would have been installed on the proposed 775 km long main canals which were to be constructed under these interlinking projects of River-Canal-Reservoirs and thus fulfilling the power required for lifting water from these canals to the agricultural fields. Summing up, water required for irrigation for around 70 lakh hectare cultivable land of West Bengal, drinking water for 6 crore population and round the year water requirement of existing and parallely installed industries could be fulfilled by these mega projects. According to the ambitious mix-power generation plan, India needs to generate a total of 5000 units of Power per year per person (per capita) keeping in mind the current & future power consumption rates and importance & limitations of all sources of Power generation. To achieve this, approximately 500 units per capita (equivalent to 2 lakh Mega Watt Thermal Power Plants working at their maximum capacity) from Coal-Diesel-Gas, 500 units per capita from Solar Energy (5 lakh Mega Watt Solar Power Plants working to their maximum capacity), clean and safe 3000 units per capita from Nuclear Energy (3 lakh 60 thousand Mega Watt Nuclear Plant) and 500 unit per capita from Hydel-Wind-Bio-other sources have to be supplied. 10 lakh Mega Watt of Solar Plants can tap the total solar energy incident on the Indian soil. It can produce an average of 1400 units per capita of Power annually at 25% capacity factor for 150 crore population. For installing 10 lakh Mega Watt Solar Power, 10 lakh hectare land needs to be acquired. For this 2000 Billion Rupees would be required to be paid as compensation money to the landholders. But all of the Solar energy cannot be tapped by the Solar Plants. Moreover, they are incapable of fulfilling the baseload-heavy demand of heavy industries, railways, refineries, etc. Keeping in mind the limitations, it was planned that 5 lakh Mega Watt pumped hydro electricity backup Solar Plants will be installed on canals built by interlinking of river-canal-reservoir. In addition to this the problem of additional land and compensation money will be resolved; evaporation of lakhs of cubic meter of water will also be checked. By installing the proposed 1000 Mega Watt canal-top-Solar Plants on 750 kilometer long canals in West Bengal, 400 crore litre water can be saved from evaporation. In 1958, The Father of Atomic Energy Dr. Homi Bhaba, invented the 3 stage Nuclear Power Program based on indigenous technology. Since three-fourth of world's Nuclear fuel "Thorium" is available in India and having mastered the 3 stage Nuclear Power Program, India alone is ready to supply on-average 3000 unit per capita base load Power to projected 150 crore population from Nuclear energy. For this, supply to the heavy secondary sector industries India can be managed completely by installing Smart Modular Power Plants of 500-500 Mega Watt capacity. Using these co-generation plants hydrogen Gas can also be produced at a rate of Rs 5 per litre, equivalent to 26,628 litres of petrol per hour, and 37500 litres Fluoride-free potable water per hour at a rate of 50 paisa per litre can also be produced. Nuclear Power Plants have been ranked excellent amongst the other available Power supply options in the areas of safety, capacity and terms of trade. The natural annual radiation dose from cosmic atmosphere, buildings, electronic gadgets and air travel combined is around 240 millirem. 30 millirem to 20000 millirem dose is produced from a X-ray, MRI, CT-scan. While the Nuclear Power industry produces less than 2 millirem radiation in nearby areas per year. According to the research conducted during the last 20 years, WHO generated an unbiased report stating that the employees working in these Nuclear Power industries lead a relatively healthy life. In the Chernobyl incident of Russia, except 30 firefighters and 20 nuclear operators, not even a single causality happened from the general public due to Radiation. All the casualties that happened were due to prejudices & Myths. If we monetize the social cost of carbon emissions per 1000 Mega Watt, death rate and consider the cost of land acquisition and capital investment then Nuclear Power comes as a better option even than Solar Energy. Moreover, according to a study conducted by the founder, Nuclear Power Plant ranks first in excellence among all other Power generation sources, followed by Solar, Bio, Wind, Coal and lastly Hydro Power Plant. Beside some intellectuals, citizens of all other strata in India consider Nuclear Power Plants as the most insecure and expensive source of electricity generation. This kind of myth plays its role leading to information asymmetry between the involved institutions leading to delayed installation of these power plants. In reference to the civil application of Nuclear energy, India ranks first in the whole world. For e.g the agricultural products like cereals, lentils, vegetables, onion, potato, fruits, flowers etc. can be preserved & quarantined for several days & even months using nuclear irradiation techniques. India exports around 4 lakh ton of mangoes at Rs 250 per kg to USA and other countries. These mangoes are preserved by nuclear radiation. For the preservation of mangoes through nuclear radiation, "Krushak Utpadan Sanrakshak Kendra" was the first center established in the year 2002 in Lasalgaon village of Maharashtra. Nuclear Radioisotopes like Cobalt-60 are used in important tasks like in the field of medicine to treat terminal diseases like cancer, detecting leakages in pipelines, etc. Installation of 10 Mega Watt Gobar Gas Plant, a Dairy Plant and arrangement of fodder farms for 44 million livestock in West Bengal can cause significant increase in the family income of 20 lakh rural families. Installation of 10 Mega Watt Gobar Gas Plants at town level can fulfill the demand of cooking Gas and Bio manure too required in the agriculture sector. Recently, according to a report, the democracy index of India has fallen by 10 percent. The democratic rights of the Indian citizens belonging to all stratas are being used to create hurdles in the execution of these Mega projects related to water, Power, Gas, milk, fertilizer and fodder. All of this is happening just due to the information asymmetry about these Mega projects. If this same democratic right would have been used to create a conducive environment in the execution of these projects then 24x7x365 - water & power demand could be met successfully. New Industries in the secondary sector could come to fulfill the consumer requirement of processing raw material to manufacture tools, implements, machineries and other industrial goods. 500 Mega Watt Smart Modular Plant would have been installed at the district level. Solar Power Plants could be installed on several lakh km canals. Gobar Gas and dairy Plants would have been established at town level. This would have led to a significant economic growth even in the services sector. If this was possible, the average annual income of each rural family would have been more than 10 lakh Rupees. More than 10 crore employment opportunities with an average annual income of 20 lakh Rupees in India would have been possible. Approximately 11000 billion Rupees worth coal, oil and Gas would not have been imported annually, and the annual deficit of 9000 billion Rupees could have been avoided improving our terms of trade with partner countries. Scientists, engineers and planners of India have completed the techno-economic-environmental feasibility of such projects before 1994 itself. These projects can fulfill the demands of Water, Power, Dairy, Gas, Organic Farming and Fodder. But all these projects are currently moving at a very slow pace. In this world's largest democracy with 84 groups, five institutions are involved in the implementation of these mega projects. These are -> General Public, Related expert group committees, Related Companies - Business Lobbies, Activists and other Organizations which generally have their own agendas and ideologies. All these five institutions, in reality, want the execution of these Mega projects, but the lingering information asymmetry among themselves is not allowing them to be unanimous in their opinion. India has been able to execute only 2 to 6 percent of such Mega projects where as China has been able to implement more than 50 percent. There are 4 lakh administrative services and 10 crore public sector jobs, whose annual average income is 7.5 lakh Rupees. Whereas India has only 45000 administrative services and 75 lakh employment opportunities whose annual average income goes upto 4 lakh Rupees. The average per capita income of 1 Billion 37 crore population of China is 7 lakh Rupees. The average per capita income of 1 Billion 33 crore population of India is 1 lakh Rupees which shows that the annual income of Chinese is 7 times that of Indians. Then too, besides few thousand Indians, most of us have a myth that India is more developed and prosperous than China in every aspect. Whereas the fact is China is 7 times more prosperous and rich than India. India is in a much better position than China and the rest of the world in terms of skilled workforce and natural resources. But due to the prevalent information asymmetry the implementation of Mega projects related to water, Power, Gas, dairy, organic farming and Fodder are on decadal hold. This delay is the only reason behind the stalled & delayed real and overall development of our state and the country. Thus it is the foremost task to eradicate information asymmetry not only from West Bengal but also entire India. The vision of Vipra Goyal, founder of Akshvi Aware, is that he would soon be able to eradicate the information asymmetry between the five institutions of India and would be able to establish a sustainable positive environment in the execution process of these much required Mega Projects, and thus India would be able to achieve a higher ranking in the democracy index, economic development leading to better life standards of its people.
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