Rajya Sabha Passes Electricity Bill

The much-awaited Electricity Bill was passed in Parliament after the Rajya Sabha approved it today, incorporating several recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee.

The Congress withdrew its amendments in the upper House. The Lok Sabha has already passed the Bill.

However, left party members walked out after the 108 amendments moved by CPI(M) member Jibon Roy were negated.

On three occasions, Roy pressed for divisions which were defeated. The Congress sided with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government rather than its comrade in arms on secularism, the CPI M, on this issue.

Congress members withdrew their amendments after Power Minister Anant Geete assured the House that he would bring a comprehensive Bill in the next session to incorporate the remaining unanimous recommendations of the standing committee.

 

He said the Bill that would provide an open access to private players in distribution and transmission of power in the country, had incorporated 80 per cent of the recommendations.

Terming the voluminous Bill as "revolutionary", Geete said it was an attempt to consolidate laws on generation, transmission and distribution of power, as also rationalisation of tariff.

With the passage of the Bill, he said the government would be able to move forward to realise the goal of adding 100,000 MW of power generation capacity by 2012, besides providing electricity to every village by 2007 and all dwelling units by 2012.

Geete allayed fears that the Bill would encourage large-scale privatisation and retrenchment of state electricity board employees.

On the contrary, the Bill would provide more job opportunities with many private players entering the power sector, he said.

Geete said the Bill originally brought to Parliament as early as 2000 was referred to the standing committee in 2001.

After 16 months, the committee gave its report and the Bill was re-introduced in the Budget session of Parliament, incorporating 89 of 112 unanimous recommendations.

He assured the members that many of the remaining recommendations would be incorporated through amendments in the next session.

"There is no prestige involved in this matter and the government will take steps in the interest of the public, because the measure is a revolutionary step in the advancement of the energy sector," he said.

To allay the fears of Roy that jobs of 1 million employees in state electricity boards would be at stake with the passage of the Bill, the minister said the Bill was aimed at not only protecting the interest of the state electricity boards employees, but also the entire population by providing them power at a low price.

He said many of the state electricity boards were in the red because of large-scale thefts and this was one of the areas which the Bill would seek to address.