POST-WAR ELECTRIC POWER DEVELOPMENT 233
except in one case, viz., they are prepared to enlarge the field by allowing the State free field in such cases which could not be profitable for private enterprise to undertake. The controversy may have had some solid basis when private enterprise was a fact. But to-day private enterprise is only a phase. There is nothing private in an economic order when industry is carried on by huge Public Joint Stock Companies. There is nothing of individual enterprise in an economic order where the slogan of a business firm is caution and not adventure and where the prime consideration is to stabilise profits by seeking to maintain in an orderly permanence existing economic conditions. It is unnecessary for me to enter into this controversy. For there are very few opponents of State ownership and State control who do not make an exception in the case of electricity.
Item 3 raises the question as to who should exercise the option when it falls due by reason of the termination of the licence issued to an electrical undertaking for the supply of electricity. The matter of purchasing an electrical undertaking. This question is now regulated by the provisions of Section 7 of the Indian Electricity Act. According to this section, the authority to exercise the option to purchase vests in the first place with a Local Authority and where the Local Authority does not elect to exercise the option it passes to the Provincial Government. The question raised by item 3 on the Agenda is whether it is not desirable that option should also be given to the Central Government and, if so, at what stage and under what conditions. It is proposed that the Central Government should also have an option to purchase. Having regard to the fact that electricity is a public utility, there ought to be no difficulty in vesting the Central Government with such an authority.
Provincial Or Central Control ?
Unfortunately, there seems to be some reluctance to accept this principle. Planning in India has been confronted with two issues, the issue of State versus Private enterprise and the issue of Provincial or Central control. With both issues we are all quite familiar and item 3 deals mainly with the second issue. To those who believe in State enterprise it should be a matter of small consideration whether the enterprise should be Provincial or Central and little or no objection