All too often, when there is talk of the functioning of public sector enterprises or utilities, the argument that is most frequently heard is that such entities are inefficient, not only because of the manner of their functioning, but because they cannot even recover the payments that are due to them. Thus, State Electricity Boards are in major financial messes because of the large amount of theft of power (euphemistically classified under "losses in transmission and distribution") besides the non-payment of dues by users. Rural banks suffer from high rates of default which are effectively encouraged by political powers catering to the interests of large farmers. And so on.
 
While this argument is not without merit, the trouble is that most often the full reasons and implications of this are not spelt out. Thus, whenever, bad loans in the banking system are talked about, it is the agriculturalists who are mentioned as the culprits, even though the total amount of non-repayment to the organised financial system by farmers pales into insignificance when compared with the huge amounts merrily left unpaid by some of the largest business groups and richest individuals in the land.
 
Similarly, it is not uncommon to hear middle class urban citizens complain about the electricity "stolen" by those living in slums and very poor and "non-formal" urban clusters. But it is widely accepted by those actually involved in the power utilities, that in metropolitan areas such as Greater Delhi, the greatest proportion of power theft occurs in the richest neighbourhoods and by the powerful elite.
 
It is this mindset which also dominates whatever official action is actually taken to recover loans or payments due. That is, typically the pressure is put on the smallest and weakest borrowers, whose total dues account for a minuscule fraction of all the outstanding amounts. And meanwhile, the rich and powerful, whose non-payment is far more serious for the viability of the system, not only escape untouched, but also join in the general condemnation of the declared defaulters and use this as a further argument to push for privatisation.
 
All this becomes depressingly clear in the unfolding situation in the Chhattisgarh region, where in the past few months, a drive for rural loan and dues recovery has lad to large-scale harassment of small peasants and marginal farmers. Not only have electricity charges been significantly raised as a prelude to the commercialisation and possible privatisation of the state electricity provider, but there has been a forceful attempt to make agriculturalists pay the new dues and all back payments. At the same time, debt servicing of loans to rural banks and credit co-operatives has also sought to be enforced all at once.
 
This has been associated with all manner of threats and aggression by the authorities towards the peasant groups in question. Forcible recovery of dues has been associated not only with threats of attaching the small properties possessed by the peasants, but in some cases with physical violence and torture as well. In one case, all the residents of the village were forcibly taken to the police thana and threatened, and some were also beaten up.