Sick of power cuts? You’ll have a choice

The Bill now travels to the Rajya Sabha where it’s expected to be presented on April 21.

Once it gets the sanction of the Upper House, it will also be possible for groups of people or cooperatives to get together and set up their own power plants to supply to a specified area like a residential colony. So you need not be at the mercy of public sector power utilities and face unending power cuts in the long summers.

Captive power plants, earlier allowed to industries and factories, could now be taken up by groups of enterprising individuals.

The Bill not only tries to unshackle the sector of controls and promotes competition from the private sector but also protects consumer interest and promises to take power to all parts of the country. States will be required to set up special courts relating to electricity crimes for fast trials and conviction of power thieves.

The Bill pushes power reforms through three radical measures: competition in power distribution through an open access system; extension of the scope of captive power generation to cooperatives and associations; and, forcing state electricity boards (SEBs) to unbundle their three functions — power generation, transmission and distribution.

Most SEBs, in the worst of health, will now have to be broken up into separate companies for different functions like generation, transmission and distribution. SEBs will only continue with the concurrence of the Centre. But unless strictly administered, this could create political pressures and result in relaxation of what look like strict norms.

Power Minister Anant Geete has had the opportunity to get the Bill passed after two of his predecessors P R Kumaramangalam and Suresh Prabhu’s repeated attempts went waste.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Power Secretary R V Shahi said: ‘‘The Bill has had 90 recommendations by the standing committee on power. Sixty of these have already been incorporated in the amendments while the remaining 30 will be part of the policy announcements in the detailed guidelines as the Power Minister has assured Parliament.’’

The Bill will now also make it possible for a more rational power tariff system, ending all cross-subsidies — no more urban dwellers paying for politicians’ fancy of supplying free power to farmers in exchange for votes.

A National Power Policy and Tariff policy will soon be introduced, making it necessary for all states to set up regulatory commissions with scientific costing and pricing options for electricity.

Hopefully, this will bring in a new era in the power sector with private participation which has been the single largest failure ever since the economic reforms of the early 1990s.