Dirty fuel

When Faridabad resident Rajendra Dhankar's eight-month-old Santro began to belch white smoke like a run-down truck, he rushed to the vehicle's manufacturer, Hyundai. What had caused the engine to so wheeze was heavily adulterated fuel. The company replaced the piston and the ring. Dhankar's car was as good as new again. But even as he swore to henceforth buy petrol only from Delhi (Faridabad is a satellite town of Delhi), Hyundai hit the panic button.

Since the beginning of 2003, it had received 70-80 customer complaints from buyers of new vehicles in Faridabad. A pattern had begun to emerge: premature engine failure, before the warranty period expired. "We were shocked," says V D Bhasin, vice president, Hyundai. "Complaints were largely with the technology we introduced recently -- common rail direct injection in diesel cars and multifuel injection systems in the petrol cars. We noticed faster wear and tear, and deterioration in the engine. Even the oil consumption had shot up."

It then transpired that competitors Maruti Udyog Ltd were in a worse fix: 150-200 similar complaints. What was with the fuel being poured into these cars? Both companies had fuel samples collected, and sent for tests in the Indian Oil Corporation's (IOC) Research and Development Center in Faridabad. Nothing turned up in the normal tests. Maruti Udyog Ltd also sent the engine parts, corroded as if by hydrochloric acid. A chlorine test revealed the presence of chloropentane -- a dry cleaning solvent.

Fuel samples sent by Maruti Udyog Ltd to the Indian Institute of Petroleum, Dehradun similarly confirmed the presence of chlorine compounds at high concentration. Also, samples picked up by the anti adulteration cell of the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas from outlets along highways in Faridabad and neighbouring Gurgaon showed traces of yet another dry cleaning agent -- acetylene. There seemed no end to the variety of materials used to doctor transport fuels: in 1998, when Maruti was swamped with complaints of large-scale fuel pump failures, the Dehradun laboratory had found traces of paint solvents in petrol samples.

After the Faridabad episode, prodded by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the matter was taken up by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas itself. Yet, to date, no one has been penalised. No retail outlets in the region have been shut down. Adulteration, it seems, is good business.

Big drums in garages
The grisly racket is alive and kicking. In the third week of October, 2003, when the anti-adulteration cell swooped upon a godown of a chemical factory in Mundka village northwest of Delhi, it unearthed a 0.16 million litre cache of fuel suspected to be diesel. This was but one of many such seizures, all involving huge quantities of tampered-with fuel: in January this year, the department of food and civil supplies (responsible for checking adulteration) had unearthed a dump containing 0.28 million litres of illegal solvents in Shahbad Daulutpur, west Delhi.

Big drums in garages and workshops; loaded tankers casually parked at retail outlets -- these are but two links in a vast adulteration chain. It begins with pilferage from tankers carrying transport fuels. Swipe some petrol or diesel. Then mix a range of industrial fuels and solvents illegally diverted from industrial estates. The operation is carried out in ramshackle sheds that can be dismantled in the twinkling of an eye; and a similar mix and match occurs in retail outlets to fill the purse.

The network is all pervasive. Narrates a highly placed official in the anti adulteration cell about a raid in Abu Road near Ahmedabad, Gujarat earlier this year: "Dealers 400 km away were alerted in a fraction of a moment. By the time the team reached the destination, they were actually waiting for them to arrive." The same cell had raided eight outlets in Varanasi in the second week of October. They sealed as many as 7 outlets for malpractices.

Adulteration hotspots dot the country. Officials point at coastal areas, the interior of northern India, and northeast India as special trouble spots. Cities in the coastal region of southern and western states -- such as Cochin in Kerala, or Mangalore in Karnataka -- and coastal districts in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are particularly vulnerable: here, easily available and cheap imported kerosene incite adulteration.

In southern states, IOC reported a drastic drop in diesel sales over the last couple of years. In Namakkal, a large trucking centre in Tamil Nadu, nearly 60-70 makeshift shops sell white kerosene to truckers. Says G Prasanna Kumar, director general of the anti adulteration cell, "About 60 per cent of the superior kerosene oil imported to Kerala is mixed with petroleum products."

Among other effects -- such as badly belching trucks, two-wheelers and three wheelers, and cars whose engines seize up -- adulteration by kerosene has had one that is extremely deleterious to the oil industry: diesel consumption in India in the last three and a half years has fallen by 3.6 million tonnes, or 10 per cent. Even as the oil incensed industry is lobbying heavily with the petroleum ministry to come up ways to restrict cheap kerosene imports and so combat adulteration, the crime itself continues unabated.

Indeed, the modus operandi can hoodwink any amount of policing. For instance, industrial units seek licenses to obtain tankers of kerosene to generate power for their own use. But many such tankers -- with valid papers and licenses -- never pass the factory gates. The problem here is that of extremely lax monitoring of the end use refinery products are put to. In a free-for-all regulatory atmosphere, illegal diversion has become the corrosive norm.

Moreover, kerosene is but one adulterant. As we move into the country's interior from the coast, the poisonous mix changes in nature. The mix depends on the availability of waste oil and solvents from industrial zones. Informs A K Bhatnagar, former chief of R&D at the IOC, "Even the same solvents come back to the market with a new name, making tracking difficult. And there are a wide range of refinery products that can easily mix with transport fuels." Petrol can mix with aromatics such as toluene or xylene, or lighter materials such as pentanes and hexanes. Diesel is more amenable to kerosene, or light diesel oil (LDO), used as an industrial fuel and similar to diesel in composition. Says a food and civil supplies official, "If you mix bitumen with kerosene, the solution you get is very similar to the furnace oil sold by refineries. This also finds its way into transport fuel."

The deadly chain of crime
While the crime infests the entire fuel supply chain, every one in the supply chain points fingers at each other. Petrol retailers argue they have no confidence in the quality of fuel they receive. They accuse oil companies of cheating them. For instance, at the time of delivery, invoices do not mention the temperature during the filling of the tankers. As a higher temperature would make the volume of fuel expand, the tanker can be filled with lesser quantity of fuel. The volume would shrink in the colder underground tanks at the retail outlet. So retail outlets receive less than what the invoice indicates; the actual volume of fuel delivered is eminently manipulable.

Says Atul Peshawaria, president, Petrol dealers association of Delhi, "When we receive our deliveries we can only test the density to know if we are receiving the right product. This is very inadequate. But our samples are tested against a range of parameters. This is unfair. We demand on the spot test of all relevant fuel parameters." But retailers are accused of obstructing collection of samples from all their underground tanks. Its simple: they temporarily disable the dispensers. Also, tampered dispensing meters allows for rampant short-selling.

Complete indiscipline reigns over fuel transportation. Fuel in transit is most vulnerable to pilferage and adulteration. A year ago, at the Bijwasan oil terminal, Delhi, a CSE team had witnessed rampant pilferage from oil tankers. Tankers trundled out of the terminal gate. Stopped in front of a nursery. A troop carrying 50 litre cans began pilfering fuel from the tankers with hosepipes, and disappeared back into the nursery. A revisit in October this year showed no change. Tankers still stop outside the terminal gates and the same drill happens. Moreover, almost every third tanker disappears into an enclosed construction site, locally called hotel, re-emerges after 10-15 minutes, and carries on down the road.

Oil companies do not take responsibility for the quality of fuel during transit. Even the official industry quality control manual holds transporters responsible for malpractices en route. According to oil industry estimates, oil companies own around 10 per cent of the tankers for fuel transportation. The rest are contracted out. In Delhi, for instance, retail outlet owners own nearly 50 per cent of the tankers.

Transporters and retailers, on their part, point fingers at oil companies, who they say supply substandard fuels. They suspect high amount of cross contamination in the fuel due to indiscipline in the supply infrastructure connecting refineries and oil terminals in cities.

Such connivance isn't limited to fuel suppliers. Drivers and operators of commercial vehicles, working on a fixed rental basis, resort to adulteration to keep a margin of profit. Short-term earning is the motive; long-term damage to the engine is of no concern. This is especially true of three-wheelers. Studies conducted by Ahmedabad-based Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology shows out of all registered three wheelers in the city, 45 per cent run on kerosene-mixed fuel. In Vejalpur bus-station and Thatlej, operators are known to mix kerosene quite openly.

In such a scenario, the only ones happy are those using compressed natural gas (CNG). Three-wheeler operators in Delhi claim adulteration is no longer an issue, as most of them have shifted to CNG. Of course, some still use 'back-up' petrol tanks filled with adulterated fuels.

Towards the end of 2001, as part of an ongoing public interest litigation on air pollution in Delhi, the apex court took notice of the ugly business of adulteration. It has repeatedly pointed out the merit of the CNG programme in culling this menace. But the Union of India, in its affidavit of October 2001, almost wished away the problem. It claimed that out of the total numbers of samples tested by them throughout that year, only 7.5 per cent had failed. All except one were within the "tolerable limit of tests". Even that one failure was a mere case of "marginal failure", only on one parameter.

The Supreme Court was not willing to accept this stand. On November 22, 2001, it directed its advisory committee, the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority -- EPCA -- to appoint an independent agency for a survey. EPCA, in turn, directed the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) to undertake the study (see box: Astutely tampered ). The CSE tests exposed a failure rate as high as 26 per cent in the fuel samples it had collected. Following the submission of the CSE report, on April 5, 2002, the Supreme Court directed the Union of India to introduce "clean non-adulterable fuel" in critically polluted cities of India.

One and a half years have gone by. The only action the government has taken so far is a vague action plan. Thus it is not surprising -- though extremely galling -- that today, the failure rate reported in satellite towns around Delhi is still as high as 25 per cent. Even as the law took notice of the problem within the metropolis, the adulteration business merely shifted base a little beyond. Then when the Faridabad fiasco hogged the limelight, operations shifted further beyond. Complaints are now pouring in from the northern hinterland -- Karnal, Saharanpur and beyond.

The oil industry -- that in all this time kept completely mum, behaving as if adulteration was merely a fantasy of the consumer and the car manufacturer -- even today reports a standard failure rate of 1-2 per cent in fuel samples, an obvious tack to downplay the problem. The anti adulteration cell, that acts on consumer complaints and tip-offs, reports on the contrary a consistently high failure rate. In the total number of outlets inspected during 2003 in northern India so far, the cell confirms adulteration in 22 per cent of the outlets inspected, and other malpractices like short selling in 60 per cent.

Clueless about testing
The 0.28 million litres of solvents in the custody of the food and civil supplies department, Delhi -- and the latest haul of 0.16 million litres, suspected to be diesel, now with the anti-adulteration cell -- are still to be tested. To date, officials don't know what these contain. Laments one official, "The Society for Petroleum Laboratory (SFPL) refused to test this catch." SPFL officials, on their part, explain that they have the mandate to check only petrol, diesel and kerosene. Not solvents. Amazingly, because vigilance officials have no clue about the nature of the product in their custody, the onus is actually on the adulterator to describe the fuel. Only then would SFPL step in to do tests. This means the SFPL -- primarily set up under the Supreme Court order to test fuel adulteration -- does not consider testing adulterants as one of their responsibilities.

In any case, as another official complains, "How does it matter even if they agree to test? Most likely the suspect samples would never fail any test!" This is the biggest scam the CSE study exposed over a year ago: there are no reliable test methods to detect adulteration!

Here's how CSE stumbled upon this truth. While preparing its study on fuel adulteration, CSE had sent to SPFL three samples each of petrol and diesel. The samples were a decoy; they were deliberately mixed with naphtha and kerosene, respectively, in the following proportions: 10, 15, and 20 per cent. The laboratory came up with shocking results (see table: Dummyfounded!). Tested against BIS specifications on fuel quality, that are normally done to detect adulteration, SFL found only one diesel sample contaminated with 15 per cent kerosene. The rest got a clean chit.

Adulteration is an intelligent science. It is about mixing different hydrocarbons. If astutely done -- that is, if you can figure out the proportions -- it is possible to adulterate and yet comply with fuel quality specifications currently in force. So it is possible to mix diesel and kerosene, or diesel and LDO, without transgressing quality parameters. Compliance with fuel quality standards does not necessarily imply testing for adulteration. The lax fuel quality standards that allow a broad permissible range for each quality parameter absorbs some amount of adulteration.

Yet the profits from even a small amount of adulteration can be lucrative. If a diesel tanker with a capacity of 12,000 litres is contaminated with only 5 per cent kerosene, the profit would be still as attractive as Rs 7,200 per tanker at the current level of prices. Similarly, adulteration of petrol with 15 per cent low aromatic naphtha can earn Rs 25,000 per day.

Who's afraid of accuracy?
While adulteration has caught up with technology, government hasn't cared to develop advanced methods to accurately confirm adulteration. There exists, for instance, the gas chromatography (GC) method. One can detect -- as the CSE did with this method at its pollution monitoring laboratory, dramatically high variations in parameters not even checked under the BIS standards. The unique 'fingerprint' of every hydrocarbon molecule, and its proportion to the total, enables accurate comparison with the reference fuels to detect adulterantion.

A sub-committee set up by the Central Pollution Control Board and chaired by P K Mukhopadhyay had recommended, in 2000, alternatives to complement BIS testing methods. It suggested the use of instrumental analysis for simulation and estimation of parameters of fuel samples, including simulated distillation and gas chromatography.

Oil companies oppose such moves. Ever ready with excuses, they claim it is difficult to provide reference fuel for GC. No two batches of products manufactured at the same refinery are similar, even if produced from the same crude. For GC tests the samples from oil depots and retail outlets should be tested against the reference sample obtained from the same batch in the terminal. They claim that batches mix constantly and it is not possible to get the pure reference sample. Since GC is a sensitive method, it will show variation among samples as aberrations.

The fact remains that the oil bureaucracy, or even the Indian government, does not care to find out how other governments apply these methods for surveillance, even in countries where fuel supply chain is far more disciplined than ours (see box: GC is possible). As R Desikan, an expert with CONCERT, a Chennai-based institute investigating fuel adulteration, puts it, "We wish to globalise without applying the global standards."

A wide variety of low priced fuels and solvents in the market are an immediate enticement to greed. High taxes on petrol make it vulnerable to adulteration with cheap solvents and naphtha. Diesel is easily mixed with subsidised kerosene and cheaper LDO. Says Rita Pandey, Fellow, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, "The difference in duty structure is the main motive for indulging in adulteration. Any rationalisation of duty structure could help in at least reducing adulteration cases."

Tax policies work at cross-purposes. To increase domestic availability of kerosene and reduce the scope for its unauthorised diversion from the public distribution system (PDS), government introduced a parallel marketing scheme by decanalising kerosene. Today, private persons/agencies can import kerosene and sell at commercial rates. April 1, 2002 onwards, the customs duty on imported kerosene was reduced from 35 per cent to 20 per cent to support the scheme. But this cheap kerosene has become the most attractive adulterant.

Oil refineries are incensed. While diesel sales increased by only 0.6 per cent in 2002-03, cheap kerosene imports shot up by 130 per cent. Between 2000 and 2003, kerosene imports more than doubled: from 0.30 million metric tonnes to 0.69 million metric tonnes. Alarmed at this trend, in August 2003, the Standing Committee on Petroleum and Chemicals recommended a ban on the import of kerosene oil and a higher sales tax, to stop adulteration.

In a letter to the Union Ministry of Petroleum this August, IOC Chairman M S Ramachandran urged a hike in customs duty on superior kerosene oil (SKO) imports to 35 per cent -- it is 20 per cent at present. "It can be inferred," he wrote, "that imported SKO (non-PDS) is not being actually utilised for the basic purpose that it is being imported for, that is, use by households." "One of the primary reasons for the significant drop in high speed diesel (HSD) sales," the letter argues, "could be due to suspected large scale admixing of HSD with SKO (non-PDS) being imported by the parallel marketers. While some retail outlets may be indulging in admixing HSD with SKO, we believe a large number of customers including truck operators are buying SKO (non-PDS) for mixing with HSD".

Recently the petroleum ministry has also sought a levy of Re 1 per litre as additional excise duty on imported kerosene, besides permission to allow oil companies to enjoy MODVAT credit on diesel. Even state governments have requested to increase sales tax on imported kerosene to bring it on par with diesel. Some state governments, such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, have increased sales tax on imported kerosene.

But for any kind of impact on adulteration, it is important to narrow down the price difference between kerosene and diesel. Currently PDS kerosene is priced around Rs 10 per litre, while diesel sells at Rs 22. Last year (2002-03), the subsidy on kerosene was a whopping Rs 30,180 million.

The petroleum ministry has sought alignment of the tax on light diesel oil with that on HSD. An additional excise duty of Rs 1.50 per litre was finally imposed on light diesel oil during the current budget. But there are too many cheap adulterants in the market and fiscal correction for all of them seems impossible. There are also trade-offs with regard to the end use of many fuels. A hike in the duty on naphtha, for instance, could greatly impact the petrochemical sector rather than reducing adulteration. These are serious glitches in fiscal reforms. Still, it is possible to narrow the margin of difference between key adulterants. As Shreekant Gupta sums it up, "Strange challenge indeed. The tax system is at the root of the problem. Yet there are limitation to the extent one can play around with fiscal strategy to address this issue."

No punishment
The government incurs huge losses every year on account of fuel adulteration, a scenario exacerbated by skewed pricing: Rs 1,00,000 million every year, by a conservative estimate. To this, add the investment on vigilance infrastructure by oil companies and state agencies, and the damages consumers and automobile companies pay on account of adulteration. Against such huge costs, the defaulter, if caught, pays a pittance of Rs 20,000 as a penalty!

The track record of penal action is dismally weak. Action taken on retail outlets between January 1, 2001 and December 12, 2001 by IOC shows that out of 18 penal cases, 3 dealerships were terminated while the rest were still operating after completing the suspension period of 15 to 30 days. Out of the three terminated, two were operating under different names.

The penalty system is defined in the marketing discipline guidelines of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. But these aren't legally binding. Unbelievably, and in the face of severe criticism, the ministry brazenly modified the guidelines in 2001, weakening them further. The earlier penalty fees of Rs 1,00,000 and suspension of sales and supplies of all products for 45 days for the first offence of adulteration, has been lowered to Rs 20,000 and suspension of supplies for 30 days.

Contrast this with what the United States Environment Protection Agency does. The maximum penalty for violation can be as high as US $27, 500 per day (Rs 1.34 million) per violation, plus the profit the violator would have made from non-compliance.

Feeble action
There are some feeble efforts to plug the loopholes in the illegal adulteration trade. One way of doing this is to track the use of all fuels and solvents obtained in the market. The government has issued two orders under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 to keep a close vigil on the use of naphtha and solvents and to curb their misuse:

• The Naphtha (Acquisition, Sale, Storage & Prevention of use in Automobile) Order, 2000, and

• The Solvent, Raffinate, and Slop (Acquisition, Sale, Storage & Prevention of use in Automobile) Order, 2000.

The naphtha control order was enforced in November 2000. But the solvent order went into typical bureaucratic delays, following strong representations by various chemical associations and a stay order from the Hyderabad high court. The bone of contention was how a 'solvent' could be defined. When a task force was set up to define solvents, for inexplicable reasons it narrowed down the number of solvents to be included in the order. In November 2001, the revised order was officially issued, much watered down.

The earlier order defined 'solvent' as, "volatile fractions derived either directly or indirectly from petroleum or coal. These solvents can be single hydrocarbon components like propane, benzene, toluene, xylene or narrow or wide boiling range of hydrocarbon." But the amended order of 2001 redefined 'solvent' as, "volatile fractions derived either directly or indirectly from petroleum or coal and are included in the Schedule." The schedule that listed 15 solvents excluded commonly used adulterants propane, benzene, toluene, xylene.

Another serious loophole is the exemption granted to small-scale users to use 50 litres of solvents. Perhaps this explains why, at the Bijwasan depot, pilferage happens in 50 litre cans.

Naturally, these orders have made no difference. These regulations demand that the user of the listed solvents obtain a license and file end use certificates. The onus is thus on the user to prove the legality of the product. The regulator does nothing to monitor the actual practice in the field. The regulatory net is designed to let defaulters escape with ease.

The trade beats the system with ingenuity every time the government finds a way to detect adulteration. At the behest of the Oil Coordination Committee, for instance, kerosene was dyed blue for easy detection. But the antidote for blue dye is already available. Subsequently, even doping kerosene with furfural, a marker, was too unstable to be reliable. In any case, coding only kerosene doesn't help, for too many other adulterants exist.

The latest technical approach under experiments now is an electronic marker. The marker is a unique combination of chemicals that covertly marks prime fuels. The basic principle is simple. The marker is mixed with fuel in the proportion of 2.5 parts per million -- a measure of the ratio of the chemical to the fuel. It is read through a portable digital analyzer to detect any dilution.

HPCL uses this technique in Mumbai. Other oil companies are resisting it. They are raising doubts: How can constant dosages be maintained at low concentration? What about leaching? Can it be laundered? A logjam once again.

Simple: take responsibility
The Supreme Court of India had warned in its order of April 5, 2002, "merely lowering the sulphur and the benzene content in diesel and petrol respectively will have a little effect unless the oil companies can guarantee that the fuel sold from dispensing stations is pure and unadulterated." Currently, accountability and responsibility and even penalty are fragmented along the fuel supply chain. Oil company's responsibility ends at the terminal point. The onus shifts to the transporters and the retailers when malpractices occur. If the companies are not held responsible for the quality of the end product their surveillance will always remain slack and perpetuate adulteration. In the US and Europe, after years of adverse publicity, oil companies have become more image-conscious. To protect their brand name, they take the business of checking adulteration seriously.

Even the Mukhopadhyay committee acknowledged this issue: "in Europe currently, National Standard Bodies carry out quality checks. Failure cases lead to penalties of filling station owner and the fuel supply company." The report cites the example of Belgium: there, a few years ago, the failure rate in fuel samples was 30 per cent. But once the government made it clear that offending companies would be named in case of malpractice -- and heavily fined -- the situation improved.

In India, retail outlets use the name of oil companies, but aren't necessarily vertically integrated with their refineries. Companies buy from each other and share the market. As a result, the retail outlets do not exclusively use fuel from the company whose name it bears. In short, only the service at the retail outlet is branded, not the product.

The Indian oil industry opposes any suggestion of direct liability. Informs an insider: "We are not monitoring what our agents do every day. We sell them the fuel, and ultimately the onus lies on them." Only recently, some companies have begun to evolve a strategy to certify quality of services and products at selected retail outlets. The 'Pure for Sure' programme of the Bharat Petroleum Ltd is such an example. These are voluntary efforts with no legal back up.

The customer's verdict could be the ultimate answer. "Frequent testing of fuel quality and public broadcast of the results can lead to public boycott of defaulting pumps," says Desikan.

Fuel adulteration is one of the oldest illegal professions. It could survive without much customer protests so long as dinosaur carburetor engines dominated our streets. Refineries with full government protection could remain indifferent. Public reaction to poisonous air was mute. But no more. Today, people are angry. Vehicle technology is forced to improve to clean up air. But more sophisticated engines and emissions control systems, will simply collapse if made to run on contaminated fuels. Emissions will be as deadly as ever. Even the refineries cannot survive more open competition in fuel market without fuel quality as its USP. The distractors of technology leapfrog advise against aggressive technology measures before fuel markets are disciplined. But if the current mood of the new customers is any indication, leapfrogging would actually help. The strong push and protest against adulteration will come not from policing, but the market itself. A bloody mutiny over the corrosive mutation of dream cars.

even the heavy monsoon may not be able to drown out the political parties' poll pitch with regard to drought-relief work in Rajasthan. The two major contenders in the state -- the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) -- are also likely to incorporate a host of development issues into their manifestos. These could range from devolution of power, construction of roads and imparting of education, to failure on the electrification front, rising unemployment and closure of industries. But it is the caste factor that will override other matters during the oncoming assembly elections in the state.

quota politics: In 1998, people belonging to various castes in Rajasthan suddenly started aspiring for the other backward caste (obc) status to get a slice of the reservation pie. This surge was a fallout from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to the state during which he declared that Jats would be included in the obc category. Since then the situation has worsened.

While acknowledging the problem, Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee chairperson Girija Vyas backs the reservation concept contending that it is also required for those who are financially weak. It may be noted that in May this year the state cabinet, at a meeting chaired by chief minister Ashok Gehlot, decided to grant 14 per cent reservation in government jobs to the economically poor among forward castes.

bjp leader Hari Shankar Bhawda, who is a former deputy chief minister of the state, predicts that this time the caste issue will prove the clincher. Experts, however, see in such a line of reasoning an alibi to avoid genuine problems.

drought aftermath: The drought-relief operations in the state have triggered a blame-game between both parties. The bjp-led Union government provided 75 per cent share as foodgrains and the Congress regime in the state contributed the rest in cash. Things went awry at the implementation stage.

Rajendra Bora, chief of bureau, Press Trust of India, Jaipur, explains: "The state administration did not convey the nitty-gritty of its distribution scheme properly to the local people, and they failed to benefit from it. Even cash payment was delayed." It is alleged that huge sums were siphoned off by local officials and the construction was not up to the mark. For their part, both the Congress and bjp have declared the drought-relief work a success. They pass the buck to each other if any blemishes are brought to their notice. As regards the long-term water needs of the state, Bhawda insists that the river networking project of the Centre is the only way out.

partial progress: In February 2000, panchayat elections were held in Rajasthan, and the village bodies have been handed over charge of 17 departments since then. But experts maintain that authority is still vested in officials. "There is no financial devolution," asserts Aruna Roy, founder of workers' body Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. The state's literacy rate increased from 38 per cent in 1991 to above 60 per cent in 2001. About 16,000 schools have been opened under the Rajiv Gandhi Pathshala Scheme. Questions are, however, being raised about the quality of education.

pressing problems: Resentment is brewing among the farmers because the Gehlot government has not been able to supply even eight hours of power to them on a daily basis. "This is the least electricity needed to cultivate two crops," says Bharoin Singh of Bassi village.

Govind Ram Sharma of Andhi village alleges that no political party has tried to address basic issues in the area such as the high fluoride content in drinking water and unemployment due to the shutting down of mines in Sariska Tiger Reserve. Many other industries, including Kishangarh's power looms and Sanganer's dyeing units, have also closed down, pushing up joblessness further. "The state government had promised to launch an industrialisation-cum-employment scheme with an outlay of Rs 40 crore. But the funds have not been released yet," says Manish Godha of local daily Rajasthan Patrika .

Meanwhile, Bora feels that the people are, by and large, happy with Gehlot's development policies. But the state bjp chief, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, may draw a few crumbs of comfort from the fact that there is a lot of bitterness against several sitting legislators of the Congress, who are said to be corrupt and have allegedly misused their powers. Whichever the party chosen by the electorate, it will have to address development issues to pull Rajasthan out of its current economic morass. The state's annual revenue recorded a negative growth rate of -2.01 per cent in 2002.

in the capital, a clean break seems to have been made with the rancorous mudslinging that is part and parcel of an election campaign. Instead, substantive issues are fuelling the verbal slugfests in the run-up to the assembly polls.

Matters pertaining to participatory governance, development and the environment have taken centrestage because the incumbent Congress government -- led by chief minister (cm) Sheila Dikshit -- has scored on all these fronts. The Congress regime has also appeared more accessible than its predecessor Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) government. Political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan avers that the Congress's impressive track record on most of these issues might stand it in good stead, especially among young voters.

powered by cng: Ask Dikshit about her government's achievements, and the move to introduce compressed natural gas (cng) as an alternative fuel in public transport vehicles will top her list. To be sure, the decision has proved momentous in that cng has contributed substantially to improving the capital's air quality. The sharp fall in air pollution is evidenced by the 10 per cent drop in respirable suspended particle matter (rspm) levels between 1998 and 2001 -- the period during which the green fuel was launched. While the rspm level was 200 microgrammes per cubic metre at one of the busiest traffic junctions of the capital in 1998, it fell to 180 microgrammes per cubic metre in 2001. But it is noteworthy that the same government had briefly tried to stonewall cng's launch two years ago, despite Supreme Court directives.

devolution mantra: Another notable success notched by the Congress government is the unveiling of the Bhagidari programme, a system of shared governance. Bhagidari was introduced in 1999 to act as an interface between the administration and people. Starting with a few resident welfare associations (rwas), the programme has grown manifold to reach several hundred such bodies. A Civil Society/tns-mode survey covering 132 rwas found that 96 per cent people thought Bhagidari was a good idea. Further, 74 per cent felt that it had improved the quality of life in Delhi. However, Rangarajan is of the view that Bhagidari may not really help the Congress draw votes. According to him, almost a third of Delhi's population, which lives in unauthorised colonies or slum clusters, has not yet benefited from the scheme. This is important, as the turnout of poor voters is higher than those belonging to the middle class and affluent sections of society.

overall development: In public perception, the capital's power situation and roads have improved markedly. The turnaround is largely due to the privatisation of power distribution in 2002 and construction of several flyovers. Work has been completed in as many as 22 out of a total 44. Even as the bjp levelled allegations of a Rs 1800-crore scam in the power sector, the move seems to have failed to sway the voters. In addition to these civic amenities, the launch of the Delhi Metro rail service in December last year is being seen as a facility that would help in easing the traffic congestion as well as curbing vehicular pollution. Interestingly, the Congress and bjp (by virtue of its being in power at the centre) are both claiming credit for this project.

The present government has also made a significant impact in the field of healthcare by opening new hospitals and expanding the capacity of existing ones. Since 1998, about 820 beds have been added in 15 hospitals.

According to Dikshit, two things that would tip the scales in the Congress's favour are development and better quality of life being offered to the residents. "Specifically, it's the cleaner air and a change in the mindset of the people. They are beginning to appreciate the greenery, flyovers, Metro and increase in the forest cover," the cm told Down To Earth . Yogendra Yadav of Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (csds) reveals that environment has, in a way, become an election issue in Delhi.

Opinion polls show Dikshit to be well ahead of her main rival and bjp's chief ministerial candidate, Madan Lal Khurana. The electorate, cutting across age groups and social and economic status, prefers a second term for Dikshit rather than putting Khurana in the saddle. Her popularity is particularly evident among the very poor, Dalits, minority communities, women and younger generation voters, states a survey carried out jointly by the Hindustan Times and csds.

Notwithstanding these positive indicators, corruption is still rampant -- particularly in civic bodies like the Delhi Development Authority (dda) -- and the city's crime rate is spiralling. But thanks to Delhi's unique status as the country's capital, Dikshit can pass the buck for such ills to the bjp-led Union government. While dda is a part of the Union urban development ministry, the Delhi Police come directly under the Union home ministry. Although the Union cabinet did clear the Delhi statehood bill, Dikshit called it a "half-baked" plan since it envisaged only cosmetic changes.

There may be some weight in the cm's arguments, but the Congress government still has a lot to answer for. The high level of pollution in Yamuna river and scarcity of water in the city are a few unresolved issues. Khurana is also trying to put Dikshit on the mat over the dengue epidemic that has struck Delhi with a vengeance. Another ominous sign for the Congress is the sudden rise in onion prices, an issue that had dislodged the bjp during the previous assembly elections in 1998. Clearly, the incumbent government has no room for complacency.

madhya pradesh (mp) is one of the few states in India where development, or the lack of it, can have a direct bearing on the outcome of the elections. The ensuing assembly polls in the state are also being fought largely on this plank. On the one hand, chief minister (cm) Digvijay Singh -- who belongs to the Congress and has been at the helm for 10 years -- is claiming that investment in various social sectors has spurred the state's growth. On the other, the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) is alleging that several crucial areas have been neglected and there is corruption in the administrative machinery.

Among the core issues are empowerment of panchayati raj institutions and schemes for the welfare of backward classes as well as Dalits. In addition to these, the acute shortage of power and poor condition of roads have caused widespread discontent in the state.

decentralisation: Singh considers the handing over of power to village bodies one of his government's biggest achievements (see box: Reaching out). But Kailash Vijay Varghi, mayor of Indore and bjp's spokesperson in the state, contends: "While they have decided to hold sarpanchs and panchayats accountable for their actions, neither financial nor administrative powers have been given." M N Buch, a former bureaucrat of the state and chairperson of the National Centre for Human Settlements and Environment, a non-governmental organisation based in Bhopal, is even more scathing in his criticism of the mp model of decentralisation. "The transfer of power to panchayats was by way of delegation and not genuine devolution," he asserts.

"When the sarpanchs of zila panchayats began to exercise their limited powers, the cm constituted the district planning committees (dpc) mandated by the 73rd amendment of the Constitution. A minister was asked to head each of these panels and the collector was made member secretary. The latter actually acquired more powers than the elected zila panchayat," points out Buch. Chottulal Sondhiya, sarpanch of Pipalve panchayat in Rajgarh district, says: "The village body has rights only on paper."

Predictably, officials extol the positive aspects of the process. "Today, panchayati raj institutions are virtually in charge of matters like revenue collection, education, construction work, beneficiary selection and project supervision," states Rajgarh collector Neeraj Mandloi, adding: "It is compulsory for panchayats to handle all construction activity costing under Rs 5 lakh in government schemes." Subhash Yadav, deputy chief minister of mp, is also effusive: "For the first time, power has gone into the hands of villagers."

dalit agenda: Jagdish Mogia of Khuri village in Rajgarh is grateful to the incumbent government. For the first time in centuries, his family owns land. Mogia belongs to the scheduled caste (sc) category. He has reaped a rich harvest, courtesy of the Bhopal declaration which was unveiled by Singh in January 2002. Under this, the cm had announced a slew of measures that were specifically aimed at Dalits. Earlier, the state decided to distribute the charnoi (grazing) tracts to landless Dalits.

By the end of December 2002, more than 2.8 lakh hectares had been handed over to 3,44,329 sc and Scheduled Tribe (st) families. The Digvijay Singh government was expected to make significant electoral gains from these moves since the sc-st segment comprises about 36 per cent of Madhya Pradesh's electorate. But the drive has run into unforeseen difficulties.

"The distribution of charnoi land has created a rift between the upper classes and Dalits. This is because the government has forcibly divested the former of their tracts to give them away to the latter," alleges Varghi. Yadav admits that "a few villages" in the state might have been affected, but stresses that it would not snowball into a controversy. Mogia is hopeful: "The sarpanch has promised that there will be no problem this year."

other key factors: The state's electricity crisis is also likely to influence voter opinion. "The Digvijay Singh government has added a big fat zero in the power sector during the past decade," charges Buch. Varghi, too, lambasts the state authorities: "About 10 years back, the state had surplus electricity. But this government has destroyed everything." Singh has, however, been reported as saying: "Few people realise that the power shortage in our state is also because of Chhattisgarh being carved out of it. Our effort is to meet the challenge instead of indulging in gimmicks."

What might make the electricity issue more significant is the fact that polling will coincide with the sowing season when farmers require more power. For his part, Singh has decided to divert about Rs 50 crore per month from various departments to purchase additional power.

One of the most successful initiatives of the mp government is micro watershed development. "The state has pioneered the concept, which involves identifying a micro watershed, drawing up a suitable plan for it and bringing it under inexpensive treatment. This enhances vegetation cover, provides storage, prevents soil erosion and assists in sub-surface and groundwater recharge," elaborates Buch. Ironically, the programme may not have the desired impact because the good monsoon has almost rendered the water issue redundant for now.

That the Congress is desperate is evident from the various populist measures the state government is resorting to. One such step, taken by the state cabinet on September 24 this year, pertains to the waiver of electricity dues for agriculture pumps of up to 5 horsepower for the period from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2003. A total of 9.75 lakh farmers and 18 lakh single-point consumers would stand to gain from this decision. The move will cost the state exchequer about Rs 800 crore.

"The issue of electricity was on the bjp's agenda. By writing off the power bills, we have scored a point over it," says Yadav. When asked why this was done, he reasons: "Our farmers have been continuously affected by droughts and their financial condition is not good. So a relief package has been provided to them."

ahead of the assembly elections, the Congress -- which is in power in the state -- is keen to draw the voters' attention to its fiscal feats. Archrival Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) has centred its campaign on the controversies embroiling Chhattisgarh chief minister (cm) Ajit Jogi and corruption within his government. Neither has thought it prudent to give priority to issues related to development and the environment.

pump priming: Chhattisgarh has not had a deficit budget during the past three years. As much as 68 per cent of the state's total budgetary allocation is spent on growth-related activities. While the region received only Rs 95 crore for irrigation projects when it was a part of Madhya Pradesh, it has got Rs 577 crore in the current financial year. The revival of sick units has generated employment. For all these impressive statistics, the state government has adopted a retrogressive policy with regard to the empowerment of tribal people.

dumping devolution: Chhattisgarh's finance minister, Ram Chandra Singhdeo, says that decentralisation has ceased to be an issue in the state. The Jogi regime justifies this stand on the pretext that the small size of the state enables the administration to remain accessible to the people even without handing over authority. According to Arun Srivastav of non-governmental organisation Samarthan: "Chhattisgarh has picked up all that it was entitled to from Madhya Pradesh, minus gram swaraj ." This despite 34 per cent of its population comprising tribal people. Lalit Surjan, editor-in-chief of Raipur-based daily The Deshbandhu , feels that panchayati raj institutions have become "victims of administrative negligence".

water row: The state's dispute with Orissa over the Indravati and Mahanadi rivers is set to intensify. Yet political parties remain hazy about the future course of action. The bjp merely claims that it stands a better chance of resolving the issue since Orissa's ruling party is its ally. Meanwhile, the Jogi government has asserted that it is going to enhance the state's irrigation cover to 75 per cent in the next five years. It is also promoting the construction of dabris (small farm ponds) aggressively.

food insecurity: The Congress does not seem to have chalked out any plans for improving trade in non-timber forest produce, which holds the key to livelihood security of tribals. Significant matters such as the people's right over their resources have been put on the backburner. Consequently, places like Bastar, where some of the people's movements for the state originated, are now going from bad to worse. This will give rise to demands for forming new states out of Chhattisgarh, observes Goutam Bandyopadhyay of the Chhattisgarh Action and Research Team, a network of civil society groups.

The bjp, whose campaign is being spearheaded by Union minister of state for environment and forests Dilip Singh Judeo, as well as the Vidya Charan Shukla-led state unit of the Nationalist Congress Party are gunning for Jogi. An ongoing case in which the cm's tribal antecedents have been questioned, the Election Commission's pulling him up for using his photo on schoolbags and the Central Bureau of Investigation's chargesheet against him for using a forged document to tarnish the image of the Union government have provided ammunition to the opposition.

Nidhi Jamwal in Jaipur, T V Jayan in Delhi, Kushal P S Yadav in Bhopal and Ranjan Panda in Raipur