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Voice of Electricity Workers One of these major problems is in the Power sector I am sure that this Conference will candidly consider all aspects of the challenges in this vital infrastructure area and evolve a sound strategy to put it on a sustainable growth path. There is no doubt that India’s performance in power since independence has been impressive. Our path of self-reliance has vindicated itself. Our PSUs in this sector, such as BHEL, NTPC, NHPC, NPCIL, PGCIL, and others have an outstanding record of commercial success and service to the nation. However, this remarkable performance cannot overshadow the fact that it falls well short of the country’s rapidly growing energy needs. Even today, as many as 80,000 of our villages are without electricity. Less than 40 percent of our rural households have access to electricity. The momentum of expanding rural electrification has visibly faltered during the last ten years. With your support, we would like to include rural electrification as a Basic Minimum service in the planning process and set before ourselves the national goal of completing this task by the year 2007, the last year of the Tenth Plan. It is a matter of abiding concern that our per capita consumption of electricity is among the lowest in the world. It is only 350 units a year. What is equally worrisome is that those industries, which have an undisputed potential for wealth and employment generation are starved of adequate and assured power. All of us know that the main problem in the area of distribution is the poor health of almost all the State Electricity Boards. This is because we have not been implementing the sensible commercial principle that he who uses electricity pays for it. One can understand –indeed, justly- the provision of subsidized power to poor farmers, cottage industries, and to the households of vulnerable sections of our society. But today there are many other categories of users who get electricity either free or at highly subsidized rates in the name of agriculture. To make matters worse only 40% of the power supply in India is billed. And not all those billed are made to pay. The combined effect of all this is the stupendous losses of our SEBs which now stand at an outstanding level of Rs 24,000 crore each year. These losses have also further worsened the fiscal health of many State Government. In addition to the unacceptably high technical losses in transmission and Distribution., our SEBs are sacdled with what Shri Yashwant Sinha called the other T&D losses – namely Theft and Dacoity losses. I am told that the country losses as much as Rs.20,000 crore in theft of power each year. Should we not resolve to eliminate these losses in two years? I suggest that all States implement a monitorable action plan to complete tamper-proof metering for all consumers within one year. The reform process has been a useful learning experience for all of us. In the initial phase of reforms in the power sector, we adopted an approach of guaranteed returns to the private producers. This made the tariff unacceptably high. The Dabhol Power Project in Maharashtra is a notable example. I hope that this issue will be resolved soon. It has once again highlighted the need for a holistic and long-term approach to power sector reforms. As the Agenda Notes underscore, our priority should be to make distribution commercially viable, so that it can boost private investors’ confidence in generation and transmission projects. We should also enable some IPPS to achieve financial closure at the earliest. We should initiate measures to improve operational efficiency of State Power utilities through structural reforms, refurbishment of old generating units and reduction of distribution losses. There is a good suggested action point in the agenda. Papers for franchising the responsibility of bill collection in towns and rural areas to municipal Councils, Panchayats and Cooperatives. Closely linked with the strategy to review the SEBs is the question of agricultural tariff. Our farmers know that their interests will be better served if we can give them assured supply, even if they have to an affordable rate for it. They are all too aware of the disadvantages of free but errectic supply . I believe that our farmers will support our initiatives if we sincerely explain our overall reform strategy to them. To begin with we should implement the Common Minimum National Action plan, adopted by the Chief Ministers’ conference in 1996. It had set a tariff of at least 50 paise a unit for agriculture and urged for us further revision to 50 percent of the average cost in three years. A comprehensive Electricity Bill will be introduced in this session of Parliament it enactment will provide a legal framework for State Governments to undertake the reforms in the power sector. I compliment the Government of Orissa for having taken far-reaching steps in this process. Similarly, the Governments of Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarpradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi have initiated measures to unbundle and eventually privatize or commercialize distribution. The Centre has taken many steps to support the reforms being attempted by the State Governments I recognize that each State had its own problems and needs to chart its own path for reforms. It is not our intention to present It is not our intention to present a single blueprint for all the States. The Ministry of Power is therefore entering into State-specific Memoranda of Understanding to support them to undertake specific time bound programme of reforms. |
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