Electricity Act amendments must for meaningful reforms: AIPEF

All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has said that proposed amendments to the Electricity Act should ensure that universal power supply obligation is also applicable on private power supply firms.
The grouping has asserted that amendments as agreed upon by Power Minister Piyush Goyal should be incorporated in the Act for meaningful reforms in the power sector.
"The Union Power Minister has agreed that Electricity Amendment Act shall be enabling provision and not mandatory on states. No cherry picking will be allowed and all power supply companies including private shall have universal power supply obligation," AIPEF Chairman Shaliender Dubey said in a statement.

The Power Ministry, which has almost completed consultations on the bill to amend Electricity Act, might table the revised bill in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament.
"States will have option to go with only government supply companies for power supply, no compulsion for private supply companies.
"States will have to notify their roadmap in five years time after enactment of the Act for segregation of carriage and content without any time limit for implementation," Dubey said.

The government has decided to make changes to the earlier verision of the bill for amending the Electricity Act after taking into account the viewpoints of a Parliamentary panel.

AIPEF spokesperson V K Gupta said the federation was able to secure a draft copy of Electricity Bill 2015, which has amended the bill 2014 basically taking into account the viewpoint of standing committee of Parliament on energy.
The Parliamentary panel did not invite any power sector federation of employees or engineers for discussion.
AIPEF said it has prepared its detailed comments on the draft bill 2015 for further discussion with the Power Ministry scheduled to be held in February.
According to AIPEF, the government is proposing drastic amendments to the distribution sector by separating the carriage from content while the state discoms are already sick financially and this change is likely to worsen the financial problems.

"The power distribution is of prime concern to state governments and not to the Centre. It is not justified for the central government to notify policies. This should be better left to the jurisdiction and authority of the concerned states as electricity is a concurrent subject under the constitution," it added.