Still, the activists managed to bring together people from at least four villages to oppose an innocuous power substation as if it were a nuclear reactor. Without SF6, substations will have to be scaled down to infeasible levels, according to Mallick. Five utilities distribute power in West Bengal and they have all made provisions to meet the projected demand. Landholdings are small in West Bengal and ownership records are a mess. That’s the case in many other parts of India, such as Haryana, but in West Bengal, this model doesn’t seem to be working either.

Source: Mint January 28, 2017 18:07 UTC