THE issue of rental power plants was bound to attract attention. It has all the ingredients of good drama and public suspicion: there is the key issue of power shortage; the fact that the new arrangement is going to be costly; that the possibility of graft could be high. But, as is the case in all such situations, some, if not all, of the public reservations can be unfounded. The government claims that it really doesn't have any other choice. The previous government, says our water and power minister, did not correctly predict the demand growth figures for electricity and did not invest correspondingly in the power infrastructure. Going by the said belief, that of necessity, not personal preference, the ECC has approved 1500 MW to be generated through rental power plants and has directed the power ministry to seek 200 mmcfd from the petroleum ministry to generate around 700 MW from the existing resources. The ministry of power is of the view that since hydel projects take around 8 to 10 years, thermal plants 5 years and coal-based plants 6 years, going after rental systems seemed to be the best idea given our current crunch. Now, even the government has conceded that this is not how they would have liked to go about things. Every time the minister talks about the said plan, he first puts the blame, perhaps not too unfairly, on his predecessors. That they have been pushed to the wall and this is what they have to do. But even they would not deny that the plants are an expensive proposition; the electricity generated would also be expensive. Even though the government has yet to make a decision regarding whether the costs will be passed on to the consumers or it will be subsidised, we all know the answer to that one. The country already has the capacity for producing power, that too through the IPPs. Perhaps if the government puts its act together and handles the issue of circular debt, we can stop looking towards rental power plants for sustenance.