Reliance Angles For Rights To Raigad Power Distribution
Reliance Industries is lobbying hard with the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra for gaining power distribution rights to the lucrative Raigad district on the outskirts of the Mumbai metropolitan region.
The Rs 6,441-crore conglomerate is believed to have written to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) requesting that it be given rights for direct distribution of power to the highly industrialised user. Reliance is putting up its 410 MW naphtha-based plant at Patalganga, which falls in the same district. Sources in the MSEB said the letter is meant to be a mere ground for preparing for the long-term.
Nothing is expected to move immediately on the letter and Reliance's plant will not be commissioned before 2000. A Reliance spokesperson, however, denied there was any such proposal. What Reliance obviously expects, according to MSEB sources, is that the board will be ready to hand over transmission and distribution rights for Raigad to the company by the time the Electricity Supply Act allows private distribution of power by independent power producers and its plant is in readiness to cater to the high-tension users.
Even hypothetically speaking, MSEB is reluctant to give up its distribution rights since private investors would vie for the high-tension bulk consumers who subsidise MSEB's agricultural and domestic users. MSEB had recently made clear to this paper that it would not be interested in privatising distribution because that would adversely affect the subsidised users and prove its own deathknell.
Raigad, at 1993 prices, had a per capita income of Rs 3,120 and is highly industrialised.
, including Mahad, Patalganga, Roha and Bhagad. There are 825 big industrial units, including Reliance's own petrochemical plants, with an investment of Rs 5,526 million.
The district has in all 363 registered factories, 2,415 registered small scale units and 94 joint stock companies.