VOICE OF ELECTRICITY WORKERS

April 2003 - June 2003

VOL. 4                  NO.2

EDITORIAL

ELECTRICITY BILL 2003 - A ROAD TO DISASTER

E. BALANANDAN

The parliament has finally approved the Electricity Bill-2003 and it will become the law. The main objectives of the law specified includes to consolidate the existing laws pertaining to electricity sector, development of industry promoting competition, protecting the interests of the consumers, supply of electricity to all areas, rationalization of electricity tariff, ensuring transparent policies regarding subsidies constitution of Central Electricity Authority, Regulatory Commissions, Appellate Tribunal etc.

The fundamental change sought to be imposed through this new legal frame work given in the bill is mainly to privatize the power sector by transferring the huge wealth of the State Electricity Boards to the private operators at throw away prices and the responsibility of power development is to be given up by the government and transferred to private companies providing for "competition".

The experience we have had in our attempt of privatisation like the notorious Enron swindling in Maharashtra, the Orissa experience which miserably failed and the on going experience in Delhi and other states conclusively proves that the privastisation of power sector will immediately result in power rates to sky-high levels and the power targets which are being contemplated by the government with time frame will be torpedoed resulting in increasing power deficiency and crisis affecting our total development which again will be utilised by them for boosting of profit by power rate hike etc.

Though we have attained a degree of development in the power generation and were able to build a self-reliant technological base of power engineering and are having sufficient resources for development of power our per capita consumption is one among the lowest in the world. At present our average per capita consumption is only 350 units while it is 770 or more in China and in the developed countries it varies from 5000 to 13000 per capita. It shows that "our power development is quite below the bare necessity". Large chunk of our villages are still to be electrified.

In this context the contemplated privatisation through this law will bring in chaos in the power sector. No one will be responsible for the speedy electrification of the country as a whole to provide the people electricity on demand with quality at affordable rate. The private operators will be interested only in profit and therefore scarcity and crisis will be a boon to them. The provisions of this law will also divide the country into two as urban and rural – Industrialise posh areas and the rest . Providing electricity supply in the rural areas are supposed to be entrusted with local bodies, Cooperatives, NGOs etc. will not be conducive to power development. The private operators will only concentrate in the urban sector. In India’s case this approach is ruinous since our economic strength even today largely hinges on agriculture. Hence dearth of power in the rural area will be quite harmful apart from the concept of curtailing or doing away with subsidy in the name of different pleas, cost effectiveness, transparency etc.

For providing or restoring power supply in areas where the system is damaged or collapsed due to natural calamities are excluded from the responsibility of the distribution companies. But who will take the responsibility ? No answer is provided.

The time tested State Electricity Boards are going to be dismantled and the power of the central electricity authority will be reduced. The Act itself has been formulated as per the IMF, World Bank dictates without proper study and utilizing the expertise available in the country. The government in their hurry is taking the risk of ‘trial and error’ which is quite inadmissible in power sector.

The government ignored completely even the vital unanimous recommendations made by the Parliamentary standing committee and pushed through the bill with party mandates by the NDA with the help of the Cong (I) Party, which are in the same boat subservient to the World Bank, IMF dictates, since there masters the Indian capitalist monopolies desire so.

Without going into clause by clause examination we can safely say that this Act will put us in a trap and an irretrievable difficulty.The political parties who took initiative for making this Act will be forced to regret for the folly they have committed sooner or later.

The IMF itself has admitted in its latest report that policy prescriptions given by them to the countries especially of the weaker nations went against their interests and therefore the total policy of IMF needs a reevaluation. In such a situation ignoring these facts the government is going by their dictates which will definitely put the countries progress in the reverse gear.

The electricity employees and engineers together with large section of people were opposing the government policy of privatization of power sector through logical arguments citing the experience in India and abroad together with various forms of protests including strike. However this have had no effect on the government and brought this legislation providing for privatisation.

In this circumstances the electricity employees and engineers who are working in this key sector will have to seriously think what to do for saving the country from this danger. When logical arguments and peaceful protests fails to convince the government their folly what is the way out? There is a saying that where "the force of logic" do not have the desired effect the "logic of force" is the remedy.

Therefore an all embracing powerful movement is a must for forcing the government to change this policy or else to change the government itself in which the electricity employees and engineers should play their role.