Cea Chief Against Radical Changes

Central Electricity Authority (CEA) chairman R N Srivastava finds the existing electricity Acts `adequate'. The only inadequacy that the current legislations suffer from is the lack of provision for comfort for private entrepreneurs for guaranteed return on their investment.

The draft electricity Bill, with its fourth draft in circulation now, should retain the `time-tested values and provisions' of the existing Acts, he says.

Inaugurating a national workshop on the the draft electricity Bill here yesterday, Srivastava called upon the power industry to first make up its mind whether the draft Electricity Bill-2000 will aim at consolidating the supply of power to existing consumers, or, set itself a target to reach power to 350 million poor Indians who are yet to be connected with power.

 

The workshop was organised by the Institution of Engineers and the Forum of Scientists, Engineers and Technologists (Foset).

The CEA chief felt that the role of power utilities are yet not over with less than half the Indian villages yet unconnected by power. No private distributor will be keen to take charge of unremunerative rural electrification.

Srivastava earlier revealed that the CEA has succeeded in the past three years to bring down the cost of private sector power projects by Rs 6,000 crore. Calling this the `hidden cost' of power projects allotted to the private entrepreneurs through the MoU route, the CEA chairman said that over 100 such MoU-routed private power projects were examined by the CEA since the power generation was was opened up in 1991.

India has a very poor per capita consumption level of just over 350 units a year. It is aimed to raise it to 700/800 units by 2015. This will require additional generation capacity of 150,000 mw.

He reminded the power sector professionals assembled at the workshop that it was their duty to ensure that one-third of unfortunate Indians are brought into the mainstream.

However, the doubling of per capita electricity consumption could also be achieved through better quality and more reliable supply of power to 2/3rd of the existing power consumers.

The role of electric power in strengthening the country's food security must also be taken into account while re-writing the legislation, he said.

Over 60 per cent of India's ground water resources remain untapped. The ground water use for raising foodgrains can be optimised by enrgising agricultural pumpsets.

So, the primary task will be to decide whom the new electricity bill aims to serve, said Srivastava. Will the bill's objective be to make available electricity to all Indians at a reliable and affordable price?

His sentiments were echoed by the Bengal minister for power, Mrinal Banerjee, who emphasised the need to reach power to people at an affordable cost. He, however, agreed that all State Electricity Boards must increase their operational efficiency.

D P Sinha, Member, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), said that the SEBs should not be blamed for all power sector ills.