Editorial on Electricity Bill 2001

October 2002 - March 2003

VOL. 3-4 NO.4-5

Editorial

The Government of India has decided to push through the Electricity Bill-2001 in the present budget session of the Parliament. The tall claims that are being made about the advantageous and benefits of the bill which are not based on grounds realities. The fact is that this bill is an attempt to insulate the roll back of privatisation by providing a legal framework for the reform policies that is privatisation of the power sector and dismantling of institutions built over last fifty years under the dictates of IMF and World Bank. While attempting for this kind of steps the government did not taken into consideration the results and effects of privatisation attempts made by the government in the electricity industry. So also they did not consider the experience world over. As everybody knows electricity as an industry which has its own peculiarities:

1. Its production cannot be stored some where which can be sold on demand. The generation and consumption has to be simultaneous and in the equilibrium otherwise system will short/collapse i.e., demand and supply is mutually inter dependent.

2. Electricity industry is an industry which has the status of mother industry i.e, this is the basic input required for almost all industries. A secure and quality supply of electricity is not only a social benefit but vital element in the economic development.

3. Therefore electricity should be made available to the people at affordable cost and that should be made available to the people on demand and the supply should be steady covering the whole state not only the cities and towns but the rural areas of the countries also.

4. The private industrialists greed naturally for more profit will not be conducive to satisfy the consumers aspirations for getting power at cheapest affordable cost. This is a basic contradiction.

5. In the case of India the history of power development goes to prove that the public sector system which we had with its legal framework more or less worked well. Those of some deficiencies developed due to non implementation of legal provision properly and the inefficiency of the political leadership who handle this industry forgetting the basics of the industry that the industry should earn the cost of production plus the cost of maintenance and replacement of machinery should come from the industry itself whatever way its products are distributed. For political exigencies many of the state governments and the central government too failed to adhere the said principles. That was the reason for whatever crisis developed in industry.

6. In our case the cost of power in India was always below the world average. And we were with a policy resorting to cross-subsidization to develop the agricultural sector and help the weaker sections of the society.

7. The experiment of privatisation was an alround failure which require no big explanation the Scandalous Enron in Maharashtra, the sad demise of Orissa model and the failure of the private sector to perform well by fulfilling the quantum of power production in 8^th and 9^th five year plans.

8. Above all the power costs went sky-high 3-4 times where reforms were implemented the costs.

9. The industrial cost of electricity in India has gone up more than almost all the developed countries. The power intensive industries are forced to shift out of India where power availability is cheaper and no investment is coming in the manufacturing sector. It has adverse impact on our power industrialization.

10. The cost increased for agriculture sector is having its adverse impacts on food production,

11. The new framework sought to be made through this bill will help for privatisation of power sector in the country.

12. The provisions of bill takes away the rights of the states on power which is a concurrent subject.

13. The system of cross subsidization is sought to be done away with.

14. The new set up enunciated in the bill ignores rural India that is greater part of India. The Rural India will provides food for the Indian people.

15. In short this bill is anti-people, anti-development, anti-peasantry and it will have adverse impact on our total development. Therefore the electricity engineers and the electricity employees have decided to muster all their strength to oppose this bill.

16. The members of the parliament who are going to deal with this subject we plead with, that this bill being anti-people, anti –development and should be opposed. Instead bring in another legislation with the required amendment in the existing legal provisions taking into consideration of our experience and opinion of experts will suffice.

We have also decided One day earlier the day the Bill is discussed in the Parliament be observed as a Black day by lightening action of a walk-out and stopping work and holding demonstrations throughout the day without disrupting power supply.


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