Mukherji 2009 Metering Electricity Supply

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Metering of agricultural power supply in West Bengal, India: Who gains and

who loses?

A. Mukherji a,, B. Das b, N. Majumdar c, N.C. Nayak d, R.R. Sethi e, B.R. Sharma f

a International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lankab School of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Indiac Central Groundwater Board, Eastern Region, Kolkata, Indiad Central Groundwater Board, South Eastern Region, Bhubaneshwar, Indiae Water Technology Centre, ICAR, Bhubaneshwar, Indiaf International Water Management Institute, New Delhi, India

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 11 February 2009

Accepted 11 August 2009Available online 6 October 2009

Keywords:

Electricity reform

Ground water

India

a b s t r a c t

As a part of the ongoing power sector reforms in India, the state of West Bengal is in the process of

metering agricultural electricity supply. This paper presents a first cut assessment of this initiative.

Results suggest that the majority of the pump owners benefit from the reforms in two ways: first by

having to pay a lower electricity bill for same usage and second through increased profit margins by

selling water. This is because in response to the changed incentive structure, water prices rose sharply

by 3050% immediately after metering. In contrast, water buyers have lost out by having to pay higher

water charges and face adverse terms of contract. Impact of metering on operation of groundwater

markets and volume of groundwater extracted is less clear; they may expand, contract or remain

unchanged, though water use efficiency is likely to go up. At current tariff rates, the electricity utilities

are likely to earn less revenue than before. These findings are context specific and hold good for West

Bengal where high flat tariff had fostered competitive groundwater markets and hence cannot be

generalised for other Indian states.

& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Indian policy discourse on the most suitable mode of

agricultural electricity tariff has come full circle. Until the early

1970s, all state electricity boards (SEBs) charged their tubewell

owners based on metered consumption. However, as the number

of tubewells increased manifold during the 1970s and the 1980s,

the SEBs found the transaction costs of metering to be prohibi-

tively high as compared to the total revenue generated from the

agricultural sector. In response, during the 1970s and 1980s most

states introduced flat tariffs for agricultural electricity supply

(Shah et al., 2007). The initial idea was to increase the flat tariffover time to keep it in line with the cost of generation and supply

of electricity.

While this solution lowered the transaction costs of bill

collection, it resulted in a set of still graver problems affecting

both the electricity and the groundwater sectors. For one, many

state governments soon started using the electricity tariff as an

electoral tool of appeasement and hence the flat tariffs remained

perpetually low (Dubash and Rajan, 2001). This resulted in losses

to the SEBs estimated at around Rs. 270 billion per year (World

Bank, 2002). Unmetered electricity supply also became a

convenient garb for the SEBs to hide their inefficiencies in terms

of transmission and distribution losses (Sant and Dixit, 1996).

Over time, the SEBs came to treat their agricultural consumers as a

liability. As a result, quality of power in rural areas deteriorated

and some states saw de-electrification and stagnation in

agricultural electricity consumption.1 In other states, where

electricity consumption in agriculture grew over time (Gujarat,

Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu), the number ofhours of electricity supply came down from 18 to 20h in the 1980s

to as low as 6 to 10h in the 2000s. Rationing, that too of low

quality electricity, soon became the norm.

There were equally serious implications for the groundwater

sector. Since the marginal cost of extracting groundwater was

close to zero, it provided incentive for over-pumping. In many

areas this spawned active groundwater markets. These markets

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol

Energy Policy

0301-4215/$- see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2009.08.051

Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Mukherji), [email protected]

(B. Das), [email protected] (N. Majumdar), [email protected]

(N.C. Nayak), [email protected] (R.R. Sethi), [email protected] (B.R. Sharma).

1 For example, number of electric pumps in Bihar remained stagnant at around

0.18 million from 19761977 to 19971998 (Mukherji, 2008a) as did the power

consumption in agriculture (Mukherjee, 2008).

Energy Policy 37 (2009) 55305539
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emerged in response to unmet demand for irrigation and the flat

tariff system. However, in arid and semi-arid regions with hard

rock aquifers, flat tariff was directly responsible for over-pumping

and, given the low recharge potential of these aquifers, water

tables declined sharply. This in turn put in jeopardy the

livelihoods of millions of poor farmers dependent on groundwater

irrigation (Moench, 2007). In contrast, in areas of abundant

rainfall and rich alluvial aquifers with adequate recharge during

the monsoon season (e.g. West Bengal, Mukherji, 2007a, 2007b);the flat tariff system did not induce over-exploitation of ground-

water.

Low flat tariff and the resulting electricity subsidy has also

been criticised from an equity perspective. It is often alleged that

much of the agricultural electricity subsidy goes to the rural rich

because they own a major proportion of the water extraction

mechanisms (WEMs) fitted with electric pumps (Howes and

Murgai, 2003; World Bank, 2002). However, this particular

critique of flat tariff is not very well founded as it disregards the

existence of informal groundwater markets. Under a scenario of

active groundwater markets, it is not the landholding size of the

pump owners that matters, what matters more is the total

command area of the tubewell including the area of the water

buyers as we shall see later in the paper. Recent work has shown

that informal groundwater markets are indeed an all encompass-

ing feature in Indian agriculture and as much as 20 million ha land

may be irrigated through these markets (Mukherji, 2008a). In

most cases these markets also had beneficial impacts on water

buyers (Shah, 1993; Palmer-Jones, 2001).

Nevertheless, in view of several criticisms of the flat tariff

system, there is a growing pressure from the electricity utilities

and the international donor agencies such as the World Bank and

the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to revert to metering of

agricultural electricity supply. This is also articulated in the

Electricity Act of 2003 which states that:

No licensee shall supply electricity, after the expiry of two

years from the appointed date, except through installation

of a correct meter in accordance with the regulations to be

made in this behalf by the Authority (Electricity Act, 2003,

Article 55 (1)).

The World Bank and the ADB have also made increase in tariff

coupled with universal metering a pre-condition for financing

power sector reforms in any state. However, several states such as

Haryana (Dubash and Rajan, 2001) and Gujarat (Shah and Verma,

2008) have resisted any attempt to meter agricultural power even

at the cost of foregoing loans from the World Bank and the ADB

respectively. The reason these governments are unwilling to

accept metering in the agricultural sector is the tremendous

pressure from their rural vote-bank. Some of the courageous Chief

Ministers (e.g. Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh) who

bought the metering argument had to pay dearly by losingpolitical power and others were wise enough not to even consider

the option. Electricity reforms in India are first and foremost a

political issue (Dubash, 2007).

Thus, while the donor agencies and the Government of India

(GOI) are pushing hard for metering, there are very few takers for

universal metering. The state of West Bengal is an exception in

this regard. As per a memorandum of understanding signed

between the GOI and Government of West Bengal (GoWB) in

2000, the state government has agreed to universal metering of

consumers (http://powermin.nic.in). In the agricultural sector,

metering has been completed in 70% of the cases, and consumers

in few districts such as North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Murshida-

bad have started receiving bills according to meter readings. It is

envisaged that by March 2009, the goal of universal metering will

be achieved (WBSEDCL, personal communication with an official

of West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd.).

West Bengal also differs from some other major Indian states

in terms of both groundwater and electricity use (Table 1).

While states like Punjab and Haryana have over-exploited their

groundwater resources, in West Bengal, the level of development

of groundwater is only 42% of the net available resources (CGWB,

2006). West Bengal also has the lowest number of electric pump

sets (only 8.5%) as against 93.5% in Andhra Pradesh and 73.3% inPunjab (GOI, 2003). While electricity is priced at very low rates or

is virtually free in many states, West Bengal has the highest flat

tariff rate in India. Also, unlike other states where the flat tariff has

remained unchanged for a long time, in West Bengal, flat tariff

was progressively increased from Rs. 1100/year in 1994 to

Rs. 8800/year and Rs. 10,800/year in 2007 for submersible

and centrifugal pumps. As a result, fiscal deficits resulting

from agricultural electricity subsidy are almost non-existent

in West Bengal (Briscoe, 2005). West Bengal also has a prolific

groundwater market. That groundwater markets are well

developed in West Bengal means that benefits of electric

tubewells are shared by pump owners and their water buyers.

The two most important arguments against flat tariff, that it

leads to over-exploitation of groundwater resources and fiscal

deficits for the state electricity utility do not hold true in West

Bengal. Metering is often espoused on the grounds that it will help

improve the quality of power supply for agriculture. However,

with an average daily supply of 1620 h, West Bengals farmers

receive relatively good quality electricity. This is also reflected

by low incidences of motor burn-outs and associated costs

(Mukherji, 2007b). The fourth argument that flat tariff leads to

inequity because a lions share of the subsidy goes to the large

land owner also is not true in the context of West Bengal. This

is because of the existence of a prolific groundwater market in

the state which means that the net electricity subsidy enjoyed

by a pump owner does not depend on the size of their own

landholding, but rather on the total area they can irrigate,

including their water buyers land.2

From the above discussion, it would seem that none of the

conditions for which metering of farm electricity is prescribed by

the World Bank or others are relevant in West Bengal. Yet, it is the

state of West Bengal, which has embarked upon the course of

universal metering. The purpose of this paper is to understand the

impact of metering on pump owners and water buyers.

2. Research questions and methodology

Metering of agricultural electricity supply has been recom-

mended on the grounds of efficiency (both financial and

technical), equity and sustainability of the electricity utilities

and groundwater use. On the other hand, it has been discouraged

on grounds of high transaction costs and its possible negativeimpact on groundwater markets. In this paper, we will therefore

try to answer the following research questions:

1. How is the GoWB proposing to minimise the transaction costs

of metering?

2. Who would gain and who would lose under the new metered

tariff regimes?

3. What would be the probable impact of metering on the

functioning of groundwater markets?

2 So, it is perfectly possible that a farmer with 0.5 acres of land can service up

to 15 acres of land under his tubewell, while a comparatively large landowner with

5 acres of land in the absence of any water buyers would service only his own land

and both would have to pay the same tariff.

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4. What would be the probable impact on groundwater extrac-

tion and use?

To answer these questions, a number of methods were adopted.

To understand the current dynamics of metering, the officials of

the now unbundled West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB)

were interviewed. To understand farmers perception regarding

metering, a primary questionnaire survey was administered to

155 respondents in five districts of West Bengal. This is one of the

two surveys undertaken as part of the Groundwater Governancein Asia project and will be referred henceforth as 1st GGA 2008

survey. For understanding the losers and gainers under metering,

data from two additional surveys were used. The first is 2004

survey data collected by the first author of this paper and will be

referred to as Mukherji 2004 survey. This dataset contains

observations from 137 electric pump owning respondents spread

across six districts of the state. The second data set is a qualitative

survey carried out in 2008 in 17 villages spread across three

districts of West Bengal. This will be referred to as the 2nd GGA

2008 survey. The specific purpose of this survey was to see how

water prices and other terms and conditions of exchange in

groundwater markets have changed in response to metering.

Some of the villages were common between 1st and 2nd GGA

2008 surveys and between Mukherji 2004 survey and 2nd GGA2008 survey. Table 2 gives the details of all three datasets.

Together, these three sets of data contain observations from seven

districts in West Bengal and these districts account for more than

75% of the electrical pump sets in the state.

3. Metering in West Bengal: the high-tech way

According to the WBSEB, there were 112,216 agricultural

consumers of electricity in 2006. This was only 1.9% of the total

consumers in the state. Together they accounted for 6.1% of power

consumption and contributed 2.8% of the total electricity revenue.

In order to meter these relatively small numbers of rural

consumers, the GoWB adopted a high-tech way.

The WBSEDCL introduced high-tech GSM cellular modules

based meters in the rural areas. These meters can be remotely

read from a distance of 100 ft or more, and meter readings are

transferred to the regional and central commercial offices in real

time. The re-designed meters are tamper resistant and any

attempt to bypass or tamper with them is reported instantly to

the central distribution office (see Fig. 1).3

Power theft and tampering with meters have been also

declared a serious offence under the Indian Electricity (West

Bengal Amendment) Act 2001 whereby offenders can beimprisoned for up to 5 years or fined up to an amount of Rs.

50,000 in addition to several other punitive actions. The law was

put to effect in July 2002 and from then until July 2003, 2000 raids

and 73 arrests had been made (EEFI, 2002). This shows that in

addition to putting technological solutions to prevent power theft,

the GoWB has also created an enabling legal environment for its

implementation.

Remotely sensed meters solve many of the traditional

problems with metering, viz. tampering, under-reporting and

under-billing by the meter readers in collusion with the villagers,

arbitrary power of the meter readers and the physical abuse that

the meter readers were subject to at times at the hands of the

irate villagers. Meters are now remotely read and reading is

transmitted directly to the commercial office. The meter readerneither knows, nor can tamper with the meter reading. As an

additional safe guard, these tamper proof meters have been

installed on electric poles at a height of 10 to 15 feet and are

covered with a protective iron casing.

In addition, these meters are also time of the day (TOD) meters,

implying that it records consumption of electricity at different

rates based on the time of the day. TOD is a demand side

management (DSM) tool, whereby a certain section of consumers

are discouraged to utilize energy during peak hours when there is

huge demand from other sectors. Like other tariffs, TOD tariffs are

Table 1

Comparison of groundwater and electricity scenario in West Bengal and other states.

Indicators (year) West Bengal Punjab Haryana Gujarat Tamil Nadu Andhra

Pradesh

Source

Level of development of

groundwater (%) in 2004

42 145 109 76 85 45 CGWB (2006)

Number of over-exploited

blocks (%) in 2004

0 (0) 103 (74.6) 55 (50.9) 31 (16.8) 142 (37.0) 219 (19.8) CGWB (2006)

Normal average annual rainfallin mm

2074 780 615 1243 995 5611113 CGWB (2006)

Nature of aquifer Alluvial Alluvial Alluvial Alluvial and

hard rock

Hard rock Hard rock CGWB (2006)

Percentage of electric tubewells

to total tubewells (2001)

8.2 73.3 63.1 54.5 82.5 93.5 GOI (2003)

Agricultural electricity

consumption (MkWh) in

20002001

1360 8200 5171 14507 9066 11,222 Mukherjee

(2008)

Percentage share of agriculture

to total electricity

consumption (20012002)

6.1 35.5 47.2 45.9 28.0 40.5 Planning

Commission

(2002)

Flat tariff (Rs./HP/year) (2007) 17602160 Free 420 850 Free Free Authors

Electricity subsidy as percentage

of fiscal deficit (20002001)

0.8 38 78 56 42 54 Briscoe (2005)

Percentage of households

reporting hiring irrigation

services from others(19971998)

67.2 19.3 38.5 N.A 24.6 33.8 NSSO (1999)

Source: as mentioned in the last column of the table, N.A not available.

3 For this initiative, the WBSEDCL received the PCQuest Best IT Implementa-

tion Award in 2007 in the category of most innovative project (http://www.

cybermedia.co.in/press/pressrelease50.html ).

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also determined by the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions

(SERC) for the respective states and implemented through the

SEBs. The GoWB decided to implement the TOD system. For this

purpose, the meters have been devised with three sectors beingactivated rotationally in three distinctly different time slabs for

agricultural pump sets. These time slots are from 0600 to 1700h

(normal N tariff at Rs. 1.37/kWh); 1700 to 2300 h (peak P tariff at

Rs. 4.75/kWh) and 2300 to 0600 h (off-peak O at Rs. 0.75/kWh).

The cost of the meters is to be recovered from the consumers in

eight equal instalments anytime within a period of 24 months

from the date of installation.

As of now, WBSEDCL has outsourced meter reading to the

manufacturers of TOD meters on a contract basis for an initial two

years. About 300 members from 100 self help groups (SHGs) with

members mostly from backward castes are now being trained by

the WBSEDCL for meter reading, billing, petty repairs, collection of

revenues, mobilization of prospective consumers, etc. (Vidyut

Baarta, 2007). While the details of such a program are not yet

clear, if properly incentivised, this might work similar to the way

village electricians work in rural China (Shah et al., 2004).

4. Who gains and who loses?

In this section, we will look at two sets of data (Mukherji 2004

survey and 2nd GGA 2008 survey) to delineate the losers and

gainers among pump owners and water buyers under the new

metering system. We have defined losers and gainers in a rather

narrow sense. A pump owner is defined to lose out under the new

meter tariff system if s/he has to pay a higher electricity bill for

the same number of hours of operation than s/he was paying

under flat tariff. A water buyer is defined to be a loser, if s/he has

to pay higher water charges for using the same amount of water or

receives a poorer quality of service or adverse terms of contract,

while the electricity utility is deemed to be a loser if the amount

of revenue generated from the same number of agricultural

Table 2

Details of data used.

Mukherji 2004 survey 1st GGA 2008 survey 2nd GGA 2008 survey

Nature of data Quantitative Quantitative Qualitative

Time of survey AugustDecember 2004 JanuaryFebuary 2008 MarchApril 2008

Number of districts

covered

6 5 3

Number of villages

covered

22 15 17

Number of respondents 137 155 143

Number of electric pump

owners

137 108 71

Number of submersible

pumps

65 86

Number of centrifugal

pumps

72 22

Number of pump owners

who do not sell water

7 8

Number of water sellers 130 101 71

Number of water buyers 0 47 72

Name of the districts

covered

Birbhum, Bardhaman, Hugli, Murshidabad, Nadia, N.

24 Parganas

Bankura, Bardhaman, Hugli, Nadia, N. 24 Parganas Murshidabad, Nadia, N. 24

Parganas

Data used for Understanding the losers and gainers under metered

tariff system among the electric pump owners

Understanding perception of pump owners, water

sellers and water buyers regarding metering

Understanding the losers and

gainers among water buyers

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of a generic IT Power Distribution System that is being used in West Bengal (adapted from Tongia, 2004).



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consumers under metered tariff is lower than the revenue

collected previously under the flat tariff regime.

There could be other ways of defining losers and gainers. For

example, a pump owner could be deemed to be a winner if his/her

crop yields increased due to better water management after

shifting to metered tariff even if s/he had to pay a higher

electricity bill. Similarly, if s/he was able to irrigate a larger

amount of land with the same amount of water, s/he could be

deemed to have benefitted under metering. If quality of electricitysupply improved drastically as a result of metering and this in

turn led to savings on part of the pump owner, s/he could be

deemed to be a winner. The same holds true for the water buyers.

For the electricity utilities, if the .... (T&D) losses and theft declined

as a result of metering, they could be deemed to have benefitted

from metering. While a broader definition of winners and losers is

desirable, data constraints prevent us from adopting such

definitions here.4 Some reflections on other definitions and likely

adaptation of farmers are given later.

4.1. The pump owners

Mukherji 2004 survey contains data for hours of operation for137 tubewells. Hours of operation in a year was calculated by

multiplying the hours of operation in a day with number of days

in a particular season of the year when the pumps were reported

to be operational. This was also triangulated with the cropping

pattern and water use data. All these tubewells were subject

to flat tariff which was Rs. 8800/year and Rs. 10,800/year in 2006

2007 respectively.

As has been already mentioned, the GoWB has introduced a

TOD system for metered tariff with three different tariff rates

(Section 3). On an average, a 5 HP pump consumes 3.73 unit of

electricity per hour of operation (at 0.746kWh/HP). Given the

different tariff rates, the average electricity bill works out to Rs.

5.54/h. To this, meter rent at Rs. 22/month per connection has

been added. Based on the number of hours of operation of a pumpin a day and the type of crop grown5 and assuming that the pump

owners would operate their pumps for the same number of hours

under metered tariff as they did under flat tariff, metered bills for

our sample tubewells were calculated.

Under the current meter tariff rates, it was found that out of 65

submersible pump owners, 41 (or 63.1%) would pay a lower

electricity bill under metered tariffs than they were paying under

the flat tariff. This means that according to our definition, 63.1% of

submersible owners in our sample will be gainers under the new

metered tariff, while 36.9% of the respondents would lose out. In

case of centrifugal pump owners, the figures would be 73.6%

winners as against 26.4% losers. Fig. 2a and b show the gainers

and losers for submersible and centrifugal pumps respectively.

Since differential tariff rates are applicable for different times

of the day, it is not possible to arrive at a single break-even point

where total electricity bill under metered tariff will be equal to the

flat tariff. However, our data shows that anyone operating their

submersible pumps for more than 2700 h in a year will certainly

have to pay a higher electricity bill under a metered tariff regime.

This will be 2200 h in a year for centrifugal pumps.

Under the existing tariff rates, the average metered tariff works

out to Rs. 1.48/unit. However, cost of power supply for the WBSEBwas Rs. 3.77/unit in 20012002 (Planning Commission, 2002). It is

to be expected that the West Bengal State Electricity Regulatory

Commission (WBSERC) will keep revising its tariff rates upwards

and would try to bridge the gap between cost of production and

supply of electricity. Quite predictably, as the tariff rate goes up,

the number of losers according to our definition will increase

while the cut-off hour point beyond which operation of tubewells

will prove to be more costly will decline. Since the GoWB has

introduced a TOD system, it is assumed that this system will

continue in years to come. Table 3 shows how tariff rates may be

increased in the future in order to meet the cost of generation,

while Table 4 shows how the percentage of gainers would decline

as tariff rates go up.

4.2. Water buyers

Water buyers would lose out under the new metered tariff

regimes if: (i) price at which they buy water goes up; (ii) if water

sellers show unwillingness to sell water; and (iii) if other terms

and conditions of water sales become unattractive for the buyers.

The 2nd GGA 2008 survey was specifically aimed at capturing

village level changes in terms and conditions of water selling after

metering of agricultural tubewells.

It was found that in all the villages without any exception,

water rates for all crops have increased after the introduction of

the metered tariff. In West Bengal, usually three modes of

payment are found, these are (i) crop and season wise cash

contract (Rs./bigha/crop); contracts for aman and boro paddy areof this kind; (ii) hourly rate (Rs./h) is common for all other crops

and (iii) one time crop and area specific contracts (Rs./bigha/

irrigation) usually found in case of crops with low water

requirement such as mustard, wheat and sesame. Table 5 shows

the increase in water rates for different types of crops after the

introduction of metered tariff.

Table 5 shows that water rates for all crops have gone up by

30% to over 50% in just a year in response to metering. This

increase in water price is not in anticipation of a higher electricity

bill as we have shown that under the current tariff rates, 63% of

submersible owners and 76% of the centrifugal pump owners

would have to pay a lower electricity bill than before. In some

villages, the pump owners also acknowledged that they had

received a lower electricity bill under metered tariff than they did

under flat tariff. According to the water buyer, the reason for

increasing water charges was the changed incentive structure for

the pump owners. Unlike high flat tariff, under metered tariff,

they are no longer under a compulsion to sell and as a

consequence the bargaining power of the water buyer has

declined. A water buyer in a village in Murshidabad district

captured this issue of changed incentive structure when he said:

Till last year, my water seller would come to my house before

the boro season just to make sure that I would buy water from

him for the season. I usually paid at the end of the season. This

year, he increased the water charges from Rs. 800/bigha to Rs.

1200/bigha. I objected. He told me that I can buy water from

him if I want to; otherwise I can go somewhere else because

now that he has a meter, he will not bother much about selling

4 Installation of meters had started in 20062007 and it was only in

20072008 that the pump owners in the districts of Nadia, N. 24 Parganas and

some blocks of Murshidabad district started receiving bills based on metered

consumption. Since we do not yet have data to measure changes in farmers crop

yields and incomes in response to metering, we have adopted a narrower

definition than what would have been ideal.5 Heres an example of the way metered tariff was calculated. Assuming that a

pump owner operated his tubewell for 24h during the boro season, his per day

electricity consumption was Rs. 132.97 (Rs. 19.58 at Rs. 0.75/unit for 7 h, plus Rs.

56.51 at Rs. 1.37/unit for 11 h plus Rs. 106.87 at Rs. 4.75/unit for 6 h). If however, he

operated his pump only for 18h in a day and grew paddy, it was assumed he did

not operate the pump during the peak time from 5 pm to 11 pm and his electricity

bill was calculated based on normal and off-peak tariff. If, however, he operated his

pump for say, 15h in a day and grew potato instead of boro paddy, it was assumed

that he used all 11 h of the normal tariff, plus 2h of off-peak tariff (from 4 am to 6

am when the day starts breaking) and 2 h of peak time (from 5 pm to 7 pm when

there is daylight).



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water. He also asked for an advance of Rs. 300 saying he now

needs to pay his electricity bill every month. (English

translation of an of an interview in Bangla with a water buyer

in a village in Murshidabad on 4th April 2008, 2nd GGA 2008

survey)

Based on our discussions with the water sellers and buyers, we

also found that in all villages, the water sellers were less pro-

active in selling water under a metered tariff than they were

before. In 10 out of the 17 surveyed villages we found evidence

that the water sellers were more interested in leasing land than

selling water to their erstwhile water buyers. A part of the reason

is certainly the buoyant paddy prices since 2006, but the main

reason is the shift to metered tariff whereby the previous

compulsion for selling water just to recover the electricity bill

has been removed. Our interviews with the water buyers also

0.0

5000.0

10000.0

15000.0

20000.0

25000.0

1

Number of submersible tubewells

Electricitybill(Rs/year)

Predicted bill under metered tariff

Electricity bill under flat tariff in 2006-07

0.0

5000.0

10000.0

15000.0

20000.0

25000.0

1

Number of shallow tubewells

Electricitybill(Rs/year)

Predicted electricity bill under metered tariff

Electricity bill under flat tariff in 2006-07

4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64

4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70

Fig. 2. (a) Predicted electricity bill under current metered tariff rates versus electricity bill under flat tariff for submersible pump owners in West Bengal ( N 65), source:

Mukherji 2004 survey. (b) Predicted electricity bill under current metered tariff rates versus electricity bill under flat tariff for centrifugal pump owners in West Bengal

(N 72), source: Mukherji 2004 survey.

Table 3

Some changes that may be made to the TOD tariff in the future.

Time of the day Existing tariff rates (Rs./unit) Enhanced tariff plan A Enhanced tariff plan B Enhanced tariff plan C Enhanced tariff plan D

11 pm6 am 0.75 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5

6 am5 pm 1.37 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

5 pm11 pm 4.75 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5

Average 1.49 2.46 2.95 3.46 3.95

Table 4

Change in number of gainers and losers and the cut-off point beyond which pumping will become costlier under alternative metered tariff rates.

Tariff rates Submersible pump owners (N 65) Centrifugal pump owners (N 72)

Percentage

gainers

Percentage

losers

Maximum cut-off point in hours Percentage

gainers

Percentage

losers

Maximum cut-off point in hours

Existing (at 1.49/

unit)

63.1 36.9 2700 73.6 26.4 2200

Plan A (at 2.46/unit) 29.2 70.8 1900 50.0 50.0 1800

Plan B (at 2.95/unit) 18.5 81.5 1530 34.7 65.3 1345

Plan C (at 3.46/unit) 7.7 92.3 1250 23.6 76.4 1075

Plan D (3.95/unit) 4.6 95.4 1030 19.4 80.6 930

Source: authors calculations based on Mukherji 2004 survey, for details on different tariff plans see Table 3.



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revealed that in many villages, the water sellers were asking for

advance paymentsa concept unheard of just a year ago.

4.3. Groundwater markets

There were 6.1 million farming households in West Bengal, of

which only 1.1 million households owned water extraction

mechanisms, while another 3.1 million households reported

hiring irrigation services from their neighbours (NSSO, 1999).

There is evidence to show that recent expansion in groundwater

markets has been a direct result of the steep rise in flat rate tariffs.

Earlier when the flat tariff was low (in the early 1990s), pump

owners were more interested in leasing land from the prospective

water buyers than selling water to them (Webster, 1999).

However, work by Mukherji (2007a, b, 2008b) show that in

recent years, high flat tariffs gave a positive incentive to the pump

owners to sell water and in the process recover their electricity

bill and also earn additional profits.

What would happen to the size and intensity of groundwater

market transactions as result of metering of electricity supply?

Earlier, Shah (1993) had found that with switchover from metered

tariffs to flat tariffs in Gujarat in 1986, water rates were lowered

and groundwater markets expanded. In West Bengal, whether

water markets would expand, shrink or remain unchanged is an

empirical question that can only be answered definitively once

metered tariffs are introduced in all places in the state and

pumping and water selling behaviour of the pump owners are

studied and compared with their behaviour under the earlier flat

tariff system. At this point, in the absence of such data, we can

only hypothesize on the impact of metering on the size of the

water markets.

Given that the incentive to sell water to others as was present

under the flat tariff system is missing under the metered tariff

system, those pump owners who were not overly motivated by

profits, yet were under compulsion to sell water just to recover the

electricity bill, would possibly exit from the market. Under this

scenario, water markets would shrink in size. From our 2nd GGA

2008 survey, we found that in four out of 17 villages, area under

boro paddy had declined in 20072008 in response to hike inwater rates for boro paddy. This is in spite of the fact that paddy

prices were at their historical high during this year. In these

villages, the depth of water market transactions would have

certainly gone down. Similarly, we also found that in 10 out of 17

villages, pump owners had shown greater interest in leasing land

from their erstwhile water buyers instead of selling water to them.

In these villages too, both breadth and depth of water markets are

likely to have gone down.

On the other hand, pump owners who were motivated by the

profit they made from selling water, would continue to do so and

get a higher profit margin due to lower cost of pumping and high

water rates under metered tariff as we saw in the previous

section. If pump owners are driven pre-dominantly by the profit

motive, water markets might even expand in the long run or at

least remain constant. Based on the rather simple assumption that

pump owners would try to recover the entire electricity bill

(including for their own consumption) from the water buyers,

three hypothetical cases out of several possible cases are shown

(Table 6). In the first case, the pump owner reduces the hours of

water sold to others, in the second, he sells the same number of

hours as before and in the third, he expands his hours of water

selling. On an average, under the metered tariff, cost of pumping

for an hour is roughly Rs. 6/h, while the price at which water is

being sold works out to Rs. 18/h (1st GGA 2008 survey). Note that

the profit motive does not come into play; here the intention of

the pump owners is only to break-even by recovering the

electricity bill from their customers. These calculations would

obviously change once profit motive is taken into consideration or

if it is hypothesized that a pump owners pumping behaviour

would change in response to meter (see next section).

4.4. Groundwater use

One of the most important assumptions behind marginal cost

pricing of water or electricity is that it would reflect the scarcity

value of water and therefore increase water use efficiency.

Evidence on this however is at best sketchy. The World Bank

(2002) study simulated various scenarios and concluded that with

metering and subsequent improvement in quality of electricity

supply, the current tendency of the farmers to over-use ground-

water would reduce. Venot and Molle (2008) in their study in

Jordan, did not find any evidence of declining groundwater use in

response to marginal cost pricing of water. Kishore and Verma

(2004) did not find any difference in pumping behaviour of

farmers subjected to meter tariff and flat tariff in Gujarat. Thus,

whether or not metering of pumps in West Bengal would lead to

reduction in pumping or increase in water use efficiency is an

empirical question and can be answered only when we have

comparative data in the future. However, data from our 2nd GGA

2008 survey found that there has been no change in gross

irrigated area in any of the villages, though in four villages out of

17, area under water intensive summer boro paddy has declined inresponse. In these villages, it is likely that groundwater extraction

would have reduced, but not so in other villages. However, we did

find evidence that pump owners are trying to minimise seepage

losses by using rubber pipes (in 10 out of 17 villages, rubber pipes

were used for the first time after metering), maintaining their

unlined channels better and in some isolated cases, also by

constructing underground channels. Water use efficiency there-

fore might go up, but whether or not it will lead to conservation of

groundwater is a tricky question. There is also no evidence to

show that quality of electricity supply, which was relatively

satisfactory in the past, has improved in response to metering.

Improvement in quality of electricity supply is often projected to

be the most important positive outcome of metering (World Bank,

2002).

Table 5

Change in water rates after metering.

Crop Unit Water rates under flat rate tariff i n 20 0620 07 Water rates under metered tariff in 20 0720 08 % i ncrease

Min Max Av. Min Max Av.

Aman paddy Rs./bigha 350 800 500 500 1000 660 32.0

Boro paddy Rs./bigha 600 1200 850 800 1500 1100 29.4

Any crop Rs./h 15 40 25.8 25 50 37.0 43.4

Wheat, mustard, sesame Rs./irrigation/bigha 50 200 97.6 100 300 150.0 53.7

Source: 2nd GGA 2008 survey.



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4.5. Electricity utilities

The MoU signed between the GoWB and GOI in 2001 states

that the reform measures are being undertaken with the

objective of achieving break-even in the SEB by March, 2003

and getting positive returns thereafter (http://powermin.nic.in).

According to a statement made to the West Bengal Assembly in

2006, reform measures have led to a turn around in the financial

performance of the SEB from a loss of Rs. 520 crores in 20012002

to a commercial profit of Rs. 81 crore in 20052006 (http://

siteresources.worldbank.org). Note that from 2001 to 2006, the

flat tariff for agriculture increased from Rs. 3350 to 8950/year for

centrifugal pumps and from Rs. 5031 to 10,930/year for sub-

mersible pumps. This increase contributed in part to higher

revenues for the SEB.

According the WBSEB, there were 112,216 electrified tubewells

in the state. Roughly, 20% of these were submersible pumps and

the rest were centrifugal pumps (personal communication with

an official of WBSEDCL). Based on the current TOD rates and the

fact that a submersible tubewell on an average operates for 2160 h

in a year and centrifugal tubewell for 1670 h in a year (Mukherji,

2007a),6 it was calculated that on an average, the WBSEB would

be losing Rs. 1530/year and Rs. 1572/year per submersible and

centrifugal pump respectively. This will translate to a loss in

revenue of Rs. 175 million/year from agricultural pump sets. If

however, the WBSEB progressively increases its tariff as proposed

in Table 5, it will earn additional revenues from the agricultural

sector. Table 7 shows the revenue inflows from agriculture under

current tariff and under several scenarios of future tariff hike.

However, this calculation does not take into account the fact that

in response to metering pumping behaviour of the pump owners

might change, they can either increase or decrease pumping.

5. Conclusion and policy implications

While universal metering is often thought to be a panacea of

all ills in the electricity and groundwater sector, high transaction

costs often impede such an initiative. The initiative of GoWB in

this regard is quite innovative and worth emulating elsewhere. In

terms of design of the program, the GoWB has adopted a hi-tech

approach aimed at reducing the transaction costs of metering.

The introduction of GSM based electronic and remotely read

meters with tamper proof properties takes care of many of the

conventional shortcomings of metering in rural area.

Metering is often advocated on the grounds that it would be

beneficial to farmers and to the state electricity utilities. Our

study found that metering has indeed been beneficial to the pump

owners. Under current tariff rates and assuming unchanged usagepatterns, the majority of the pump owners in West Bengal would

have lower electricity bills than under the flat tariff regime. At the

same time, they have been able to increase the rates at which they

sell water to others by 3050%. Electric pump owners number just

above 100,000 and hence constitute less than 2% of the

agricultural households in the state. They also happen to be

larger and wealthier farmers (Mukherji, 2007a).

Water buyers have lost out under the new metered tariff

system in several ways. First, they now have to pay a higher price

for buying water. Second, their bargaining power vis-a-vis the

water sellers has declined considerably and as a result they are

now being forced to buy water at disadvantageous terms and

conditions. This has happened because the pump owners no

longer need to sell water to cover high and fixed electricity costs.

Table 6

Impact of metering on the size of groundwater markets.

Cases Hours of operation of a

submersible pump under flat

rate tariff

Electricity bill under current

metered tariff of Rs. 6/h

Number of hours of water to be sold to

recover the meter bill at Rs. 18/h

Expansion, contraction or no change in hours

of water sold after metering

For

self

use

For selling

to others

Total

Case

1

800 700 1500 9000 500 Contraction by 200 h

Case

2

1200 600 1800 10800 600 No change in hours sold

Case

3

1500 600 2100 12,600 700 Expansion by 100 h

Table 7

Loss or gain in revenue from the agricultural sector under metered tariff as compared to flat tariff under present tariff rates and future tariff rates.

Tariff rates Loss () or gain (+) in Rs. per submersible

tubewell/year

Loss () or gain (+) in Rs. per centrifugal

tubewell/year

Overall loss () or gain (+) in revenue for

the WBSEB in million Rs./yeara

Existing (at 1.49/unit) 1530 1572 175.4

Plan A (at 2.46/unit) +1710 +932 +122.1

Plan B (at 2.95/unit) +5739 +4047 +492.1

Plan C (at 3.46/unit) +9767 +7161 +862.1

Plan D (3.95/unit) +13,795 +10,276 +1232.1

Source: Mukherji 2004 survey for average hours of operation of tubewell data. Also see Table 3 for details of each of the tariff plans.

a This assumes that there are 112,216 electric tubewells in the state of which 20% are fitted with submersible pumps and 80% with centrifugal pumps.

6 While calculating the electricity bill under the current TOD rates, it was

assumed out of every 100h of operation, 57h are during the night time off-peak

rates of Rs. 0.75/unit, 40 h are during the normal daytime tariff of Rs. 1.37/unit and

3 h are during the evening peak tariff of Rs. 4.75/unit. This is based on detailed

analysis of around 20 electricity bills under meter tariff from April 2007 to March

2008.

http://powermin.nic.in/http://siteresources.worldbank.org/http://siteresources.worldbank.org/http://-/?-http://-/?-http://siteresources.worldbank.org/http://siteresources.worldbank.org/http://powermin.nic.in/


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This unwillingness of the pump owners to sell water is manifested

in their eagerness to lease land from the erstwhile water buyers. If

this occurs, it will make the current water buyers increasingly

dependent on the market for procuring food grains for self-

consumption or push them out of farming. Water buyers

constitute 50% of the rural farming households (NSSO, 1999) and

often belong to the poor and marginal sections of the society.

Under the existing electricity tariffs, even the state electricity

utilities are likely to lose out in terms of revenues. This thereforeputs in to question the claim that metering by itself can improve

the incomes of the SEB. Another justification for metering, that is,

it will lead to better energy auditing can be effectively taken care

of through metering at the transformer level without metering

individual agricultural consumers and this could have been done

at a lower cost. That the largest section of the rural community,

namely, the water buyers has been negatively affected by

metering also calls into question the assertion that metering will

improve the lives of Indias farmers (World Bank, 2002).

Marginal cost pricing through metering might lead to

improved water use efficiency and this will be a positive outcome.

However, whether or not it will lead to water savings is a

debatable issue. More debatable is whether or not conservation of

groundwater should be the prime policy objective in a state that is

flush with groundwater and steeped with poverty and where

groundwater may be used for poverty alleviation (Kahnert and

Levine, 1993). Metering and therefore proper auditing and

accounting of energy supply is also thought to ultimately improve

the quality of electricity. However, as mentioned earlier, farmers

in West Bengal receive relatively high quality electricity supply

and during our survey, we did not find any evidence that quality

has further improved after metering.

Given that the GoWB has already invested millions of rupees in

metering and that the lending agencies also insist on it as does

Indias national policies, it is unlikely that metering will be

revoked. Under such a scenario, what are the policy options that

might soften the blow to the poorer water buyers?

The GoWB needs to take steps to accelerate the pace of

electrification of tubewells in the state. This will enhance

competition in the water markets and in response, water prices

might decline. On the positive side, metering of electricity would

encourage many small farmers to invest in tubewells who earlier

might have been reluctant to invest fearing that they would not be

able to recover the high flat tariff through selling water. Under

metering, they would have to pay for only as much as they

consume. However, as per the current government policies,

getting a new electricity connection for a tubewell is a cumber-

some process involving permission from the State Water Inves-

tigation Directorate (SWID) (Mukherji, 2006). Besides, with

phasing out of all capital subsidies since the late 1990s,

construction of electric tubewells has become a costly affair

requiring anything from Rs. 50,000 to 150,000 per tubewell. The

GoWB should relax the stringent SWID regulations and alsoprovide capital subsidy to the small and marginal farmers for

construction of tubewells. This will reduce their dependence on

water markets for accessing irrigation.

The panchayats (local governments) can play an important role

in regulating water prices in the market. Earlier, the very incentive

structure inherent in the high flat tariff induced competition in

the market and monopoly tendency among the water sellers was

kept under check (Mukherji, 2007a). However, under metered

tariff and changed incentive structure, pump owners would try to

increase their profit margins by increasing the water price as we

saw earlier. In view of this, the panchayats can act as regulators by

setting the maximum price at which a pump owner can sell water

in the village. In some villages in West Bengal, panchayats already

play a regulatory role (see Mukherji, 2007c) but this needs to be

carefully replicated at a larger scale keeping in mind issues of

corruption and local elite capture.

This paper is the first of its kind that examines the impact of

metering on agricultural groundwater users. In doing so, it

contributes in two important ways. First, it questions the

orthodoxy that universal metering is impossible in India because

of high transaction costs involved (Shah et al., 2007). This paper

shows that modern IT technologies offer new possibilities for

overcoming old problems and the GoWB has indeed adopted suchtechnology to great success. Second, it also questions another

orthodoxy that now prevails among the donor agencies and

researchers, viz. that metering will improve the lives of Indias

farmers (World Bank, 2002; Ruet, 2005). This paper shows that it

need not necessarily be so in a region where farm sizes are

extremely small, groundwater resources are abundant and

competitive groundwater markets which benefit the small and

marginal farmers have developed in response to high flat rate

tariffs. All these conditions prevail in West Bengal and it is here

that metering, by changing the dynamics of the competitive

groundwater markets has benefited electric pump owners at the

cost of majority of water buyers. However, this paper in no way

generalises its finding by claiming that metering will have similar

negative impacts elsewhere. Indeed, in regions of large land

holding, over-exploited groundwater resources, absent ground-

water markets, free or low flat tariff regimes (e.g. Punjab,

Haryana), metering might as well be the best policy option. The

findings of this study thus are context specific and in itself is an

indicator of how generic policy prescriptions such as universal

metering are not always likely to produce desirable outcomes

unless they are put into the right context.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the Challenge Program on Water

and Food (www.waterandfood.org) for funding the Groundwater

Governance in Asia Project (www.waterforfood.org/gga/ ). This

paper is an output from the project.

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Mukherji 2009 Metering Electricity Supply