Goyal hopeful of electricity bill clearance in budget session

The Electricity (amendment) Bill, 2014, which aims at unbundling the power distribution and transmission sector and opening it for competition, is likely to be passed during the coming budget session of the Parliament, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said here today.
The amendments seek to segregate carriage (distribution network) from content (electricity supply business).
"We introduced the amendments to the Electricity Act of 2003 during the winter session. The bill is now before the standing committee which is carrying out deliberations on it. We expect to get its report by March and expect the bill would be passed in the budget session," Goyal said.

"The separation of carriage and content has been proposed to ensure there is no monopoly of any discoms. The amendments will give the consumer power to choose the electricity supplier," he said, talking to reporters here.
Goyal further said the amendments will bring in transparency. "Our aim is to reduce cost of power generation and in turn provide power to consumers at cheaper rates," he added.
The amendments will also promote competition, efficiency in operations and improvement in quality of supply resulting in capacity addition, he said.
"To rationalise the tariff structure for viability of the distribution sector and recovery of revenue requirement of licensees without any gap, the provisions of tariff policy are proposed to be made mandatory for the determination of tariff," the minister said.