Chettinad heritage unravelling into the Maritime Dynasty

Chettinad heritage unravelling into the Maritime Dynasty

One of the most vibrant expression of this culture is their excellence in architecture,even the small villages in this area has huge palatial houses which were decorated with very big wooden doors, which hasbeautiful wooden carvings. The pillars and wooden beam are made up of wood with the beautiful carvings. These wooden items are mainly made of Burmese teak. Wall of the houses are made up of specialformation of cement which keeps its shining despite crossing centuries. Floor of the houses are decorated by athangudi tiles;athangudi is a place in Chettinad, which manufacturers these tiles.

Combination of these specialties from wall to door and tiles to pillars, further decorated with Italian glasses on the windows, makes this palatial houses; sprawling more than one acre; as the most habitable place in summer and in winter.

Further the most adoring thing in Chettinadheritages is its household utensils, which are made up silver, copper, brass; they are not only unique in design but also decoratethe exterior of the houses. It is important to stress that economy value of this utensilslike Aruvalmanai (vegetable cuttar), thengaithirvgi (coconut grater), agappai koodu(ladle holder) are more than their aesthetic value.

This sprawling houses never looks vacant and ambience inside the houses is filled with the pristine serenity because of vast wooden furniture from kankapillai mesai(accountant table) to mukkali (three lagged stools). It is not a surprise that thesewooden items sold for more than Rs. 5 lakhs.

Along with these wooden carvings, thisChettinad heritage also embodies culture of dry area on which it sits, mainly artifacts made up of dry palm leafs kottans whichbeautifully fills a space between land, woodand the wall.

This beautiful expression of civilization iscreated by the people who have also left no stones unturned to decorate themselves with the fashion of Jewellery and Sarees.This jewellery made up of gold, many atime filled with the various colors of diamond. The designs of the jewellery wasunique and their expression matches with modernity of their looks and antiquity of the house. They use to wear a matching sareeswhich are popularly called kandangi sarees, which are very peculiar in design and in thefeel.

This vibrant culture unfortunately was not expressed to the tourism world the way the palaces of the Rajasthan were told. Further because of changing economic fortunes, people started destroying their houses and selling the wooden architecture utensils etc. for a cheaper rate to Western Countries.Understanding the need for preserving the culture of Chettinad and promote its tourism potential, Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, India, Dr.E.M.Sudarsana Natchiappan is initiated the concept of “Chettinad heritage” when he became MP first time in 1999. Based on theserious and consistent efforts many of the palatial house owners converted their houses into heritage hotel, which are otherwise not maintainable as the house because of this magnificent size, such as palace hotel Naranyana Villas, etc. This house also now-a-days is given to Cinema shootings mainly tamil moves. Hon’ble Ex union minister has developed these new trends on tourism which has effectively stopped the trend of destroying the old houses andselling wooden architecture. Presently it is understood, there are around 4000 houses of this type in an around Chettinad area.Which may be valuing between Rs. 6 lakhs to Rs. 3 crore.

Now the renewed efforts should be made to keep the cultural pillars of this maritime  dynasty for long time to come .

BUDDHA

Power problem in Tamil Nadu: How and why state government has failed

Tamilnadu is the eleventh largest state in India by area and the seventh most populous state and aggressive industrial state. Thus electricity is an important infrastructural requirement for the growth of State. 

In the electricity arena ,major areas of concern are 

Power generation

Power transmission

Power distribution

Power delivery (to final customer)

Inorder to have the balanced approach all the areas haves to be addressed equally.In tamilnadu the problem is started from this very basic approach that all the areas were not addressed equally. This explains why, even when the state has installed capacity of 18382MW ,still it is not able to produce more than 10566 MW and not able to match the demand of 12,813 MW for the year 2012. Instead of addressing this concern, State Government is filing the case in Supreme Court and giving press statement blaming the central Government. Here State has undermined the other activities and continuously worried about generation only. It is also important to note that only in the power generation and transmission Central Government is involved with the State Government, other two above activities are fully within the ambit of state govt. Thus state govt cannot blame the Central Government for failing on these areas also. 

Power Generation 

Basically there are mainly five sources of power in a state

Own generation

Central allocation

Power purchased from independent power producers (IPP)

Short term power from the exchange

Other sources including wind power

The following table explains break down of power generation on each sector in Tamil Nadu:

If we compare the installed power capacity in Tamil Nadu from conventional source between 2004-05(9531 mw) to 2011-12 (10364 mw), there seems to be no significant capacity addition during the past 7 years as shown below:

Though there is growth in non conventional energy, like wind mills, co gen, biomass but that to does not help the situation beyond a point. The capacity utilization of wind power stations has been only around 30% on annualized basis, due to lack of wind speed during major part of the year. Majority of this wind mills are erected 15 years back with Scandinavian countries machinery, now the technology has gone for sea change. Because of this and other factors like TNEB not paying this wind electricity charges regularly, there is slackness in increase in capacity ; just addition of 163 mw in first quarter of 2012-13 against the addition of 644 mw during the first quarter of 2011-12. 

It is important to note that there is widespread setting up of wind mills mainly because of various promotional schemes of  UPA govt ,mainly because of income tax benefits under section  80 IA/IB which has provided huge depreciation benefits to the industries. 

But one welcome note from tamilnadu state govt is they have announced to build up solar power capacity of 3000 mw in next three years. If they able to achieve the same it will help in relieving the 

Power shortage problem

Less stress on grid since it does not require grid transmission being self-contained

Tamilnadu has been facing both peak and energy deficits over the last few years. Peak demand deficit in the state has increased from 1% in FY 2005-06 to 18% in 2011-12. Between 2005-06 and 2011-12, peak electricity demand grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8%, while peak demand met at CAGR of 5%. (See graph below)

Peak electricity demand deficit in Tamilnadu

Electricity deficit in the state has increased from 1% in 2005-06 to 11% in 2011-12. Between 2005-06 and 2011-12, electricity requirement grew at CAGR of 9%, while availability only grew at around 7% leading to increasing electricity deficits. (See graph below).

Actual Power Supply Position of the State of Tamilnadu

From the above charts it is very clear that state power crisis is not one day story but the bad seeds are sown for last few years; from 2011 electricity deficit  has sharply increased to 11 % and it is expected to go up to 34 % this year-highest in the country- despite supports from Government of India. This problem is further compounded by delays in commissioning of the 2000 MW Kudankulam nuclear  plant and setting down of serious of gas based plants with the capacity of 3000 MW along the AP coast, mainly because of dropping gas production KG D-6 block.

It is layman calculation that if the GDP grows at 8% per annum then power generation has to grow at 10% considering the 20% transmission losses.this means that tamilnadu has to increase the power capacity by 1500 mw per year and after meeting the present shortage of 3000 mw to 4000mw.

This is also provided that state government is properly able to implement the all the pending projects in time. As per the projections total capacity that will be added in the Tamil Nadu State from 2011-12 to 2015-16 is 7300 MW, out of which 1860MW will come from State sector, 4250MW from the Central sector and 1200 MW from the private sector. Thus, more than 70% of power supply support come from the Government of India. There cannot be more cooperation than this steps by the Central Government for any State.

Comparison with other States

As mentioned earlier, Tamil Nadu is expected to have a deficit of around 18%, which was the highest among all the States considered. Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are also expected to have a high deficit of 11% followed by Gujarat with an 8% deficit. Rajasthan and West Bengal on the contrary are expected to perform well with Rajasthan displaying a perfect balance and West Bengal having a large surplus of 16%.

Comparing this with the situation in 2003-04, it can be seen that the status of deficits in most of the states was the same, except in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Tamil Nadu, in particular, only had a deficit of around 1% in 2003-04. This deficit has been increasing rapidly, especially in the last five years .

The reason for the huge deficits in Tamil Nadu is due to the lack of power availability. Anticipating a huge increase in demand, driven by economic growth, states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh put in added efforts to increase the availability of power. This was done both by increasing own capacity and by encouraging private investment in power generation. On the contrary, such a long term vision to increase availability of power was absent in Tamil Nadu. This is analysed in detail in the following section.

If we compare the dependency power from each of the sources between Tamil Nadu and other states like Maharastra and Andhra Pradesh; we will understand that Tamil Nadu is the most dependent on the outside sources. Own generation by TNEB is the lowest among all the States. Further large portion of power supply in the state is allocated to it from central generating stations (CGS).

Next important thing is availability of power in the right time, from the past data it can be seen that the electricity demand in Tamil Nadu touches maximum in the month of October, after that it tappers down at the end of November. This peak in the month of October is mainly due to reduction in wind generation, reduction in hydro inflows and change in the load due to other condition. During this year reduction in demand met is mainly due to reduction in generation at Tamil Nadu Government own station; i.e. 500 MW reduction in State Government Hydro Generation and 1000MW reduction in State Thermal Generation. As far as withdrawal of power from the Central Grid there seems to be only marginal reduction. Without understanding this Tamil Nadu State Government is unnecessarily blaming the Central Government.

Transmission and Distribution

One more issue is, Tamil Nadu State Government is keep complaining that Central Government is not allowing more withdrawal of power through Central Grid even though certain other States who are having surplus are ready to supply the same to Tamil Nadu.

It is important note that Indian electrical map is divided into 5 grid that is Southern Grid, Northern Grid, North-Eastern Grid, Eastern Grid and Western Grid. Southern Grid faces an overall power deficit of 26% this year compare to 18.5% last year. Northern Grid faces shortfall of 1.3% and North-Eastern Grid will have a deficit of 10%, the Western Grid is likely to generate surplus power of 6.8% and Eastern Grid surplus of 7.9%. 

Transmission of surplus power from surplus grid/State to deficit grid/state gets restricted because of two problems:

The inter regional transfer capability; 

The intra grid transfer capability.

SR is connected with other regions through HVDC links with the following transmission capacity:

Talchar-Kolar HVDC bi-pole link connecting ER (Orissa) –SR (Karantaka): 2000MW

Bhadrawati HVDC Back to Back connecting WR (Maharashtra)-SR (AP): 1000MW

Gazuwaka HVDC Back to Back connecting ER (Orissa) – SR (AP):1000MW

As far as point one, The main problem faced by Tamil Nadu in transmission with respect to congestion in the Southern Grid. Southern Grid problem are linked to its isolation from other grids. This saved the Southern Grid from collapse when Northern and Eastern Grids broken down year ago but it hurts when the excess power in the Eastern-Western Grids cannot be transmitted south. It is important note that the Planning of transmission network is a coordinated process, where central electricity authority (CEA) in the standing committee meetings in consultation with CTU (power grid) and states decides the network for the evacuation of generation and transfer of power. Thus, the creation of transmission network is a well-planned and thought out project, this has to be done with huge future foresight by the Tamil Nadu State Government, which they have miserably failed to do so. Now, the Southern Grid can emerge out from this problem of isolation only after ongoing works on two lines connecting Raipur and Sholapur is completed. On completion they will be able to transmit 2500 MW.

Though the Tamil Nadu Government keeps blaming Central Government, w.e.f. 16th June, 2013, Central Government has enabled transmission of imported power from other generating systems located in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat to the tune of 500 MW through medium term open access. 

As far as point two, for transfer of power within Southern Grid i.e. from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala certain Extra High Voltage (EHV) lines had to be constructed by Tamil Nadu Government also, but seems, it is not commissioned so far. 

Comparison with other States

Comparison of the T&D systems is done based on the following parameters – Density of the transmission and distribution lines, T&D losses and Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses. These parameters are presented below in tables and graphs.

Tamil Nadu also has relatively low T&D and AT&C losses of 18% and 19.5% respectively. Even though these values are relatively low, they have remained at these levels for the past ten years. The absence of improvement in the T&D and AT&C losses is an area of criticism. This is evident from the following graph which shows the movement of T&D losses in the different states since 2002-03. Tamil Nadu is the only state which has not reduced its T&D losses and improved the system over the years.  

In the back drop of the above discussion Tamil Nadu State Government has to do the following reforms instead of continuously blaming the Government of India:

To keep a long term perspective of generating the power vis a vis the growth requirement like the way states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh planned.

Debundling of generation, transmission, distribution and supply function in effective manner so that  the generation company may make more profit which inturn will be useful for getting huge loans from the banks for the expansion/new power projects. Post Electricity Act, 2003 also reorganization of TNEB has not been done in such a big way.its mounting depts of more than 50000 cr is creating lot of problems.

State Government as revised the power tariff after 2003 only in July, 2010 and then in March, 2012. This revision of tariff has to be in a periodical manner.

To encourage wind power generation TNEB has to reduce the default of payment for purchase of power from 14 months to 60 days. Further new schemes to promote wind power generation to be announced to utilize the maximum potential i.e. 6000 MW.

To improve the generation of solar power more than 3000 MW through the help of Government of India schemes. 

Like other States feeders for industrial load, commercial load, agricultural load and domestic load to be separated and the free power given to agriculture also has to be metered so that to understand the total loss in the distribution circuit.