VOICE
OF ELECTRICITY WORKERS
Oct-Dec 2001
Vol 2 No.4 Index
NEWS BRIEFS
PANEL TO PROBE DABHOL PPA
IRREGULARITIES
An enquiry commission, to be headed by a retired Supreme
Court judge, would probe into the irregularities in clearances and
waivers accorded to the Dabhol Power Company and submit the recommendations
in six months.
Courtesy: Business Standard dated 20 September 2001
ENRON CHIEF FUMES, SAYS GOVT LACKS WILL TO SOLVE ISSUE
Piqued by the delay in resolving the issues surrounding the Dabhol
project, Enron chief Kenneth Lay has written a letter to Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee, cc finance minister Yashwant Sinha and power
minister Suresh Prabhu, criticizing the lack of concern towards
finding a speedy solution to the whole problem.
Apart from the fact that it reiterates the corporation’s resolve
to accept nothing less than its full investment in the project,
what is surprising about this letter, dated September 14, is the
harshness (in places) of its tone. He says “the conduct of
GOI and GOM in refusing to honour their obligations under their
respective guarantees and the MSEB’s attempts to wriggle out
of its contractual obligations under the PPA and, in particular,
the arrangements for international arbitration, are what is to be
expected of governments that have a history of not respecting contracts
and the rule of law”.
“Contrary to what the GOI has always sought to tell foreign
investors or lenders, Enron’s experience would indicate that
contracts with Governmental authorities in India do not represent
anything more than a mere starting point for a later renegotiation
and are broken by Indian authorities, whenever and as often as they
prove inconvenient or burdensome.
ENRON WARNS INDIA OF SANCTIONS
Kenneth Lay, Enron chairman, said: “There are laws that could
prevent the US government from providing any aid or assistance or
other things to India going forward if, in fact, they expropriate
property of US companies.”
LONDON COURT RESTRAINS MAHARASHTRA FROM CHALLENGING DABHOL
COMPLAINT
Dabhol Power Company (DPC) said today it had obtained a ruling
from a London court preventing the Maharashtra government from legally
challenging international arbitration proceedings.
FREEZE DA RATES, CENTRE TELLS STATES
The Centre has decided to ask all chief Ministers to agree to a
proposal to freeze the rates of dearness allowances of state government
employees along with restrictions on increase in pay as part of
a package of measures for fiscal corrections.
The proposals to consider four major issues that the Centre wants
to push forward. These include labour and power reforms, fiscal
corrections and changes in governance procedures.
According to top level government sources, the Centre feels that
it will be impossible to effect any improvement in the fiscal position
of the state governments unless all the states move ahead together.
Otherwise the popular backlash to any move to restrict the allowances
for government servants will be difficult to handle for any state
government.
As part of the fiscal corrections programme, the Centre is urging
the states to curtail their tendency to award rates of dearness
allowance at the same rates as applicable for Central government
employees. The mounting salary and pension liabilities is one of
the main reasons for states going in for market borrowings which
push them further into debt. The current public debt of the states
is 23.1 per cent of the GDP.The Centre will urge all the states
to agree to a scale of cutbacks to restore their fiscal health.
Courtesy: Business Standard dated 2 October 2001
MP POWER REGULATOR PROPOSES HIKE IN TARIFFS
The Madhya Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission has announced
a hike in electricity rates by an average of 14.73 per cent to help
the debt-ridden MP State Electricity Board (MPSEB) net an additional
revenue of Rs 547 crore.
While the tariff hike is 18.07 per cent for the low-tension power
consumers, the high-tension power consumers or industrial power
consumers will have to pay 10.12 per cent more.
With this hike, the domestic consumers will have to pay Rs 3.50
per unit tariff. The minimum tariff for single-phase connection
and three-phase connection would go up to Rs 50 and Rs 150 per month,
respectively. The non-domestic consumers will have to pay Rs. 3.64
per unit for each additional unit.
The industrial power tariff will vary from Rs 1.89 to Rs 4.54 depending
upon the consumption capacity of the unit. The high-tension consumers
will have to pay Rs 2.92 to Rs3.44 per unit.
In an attempt to minimize the impact of hike, the commission has
introduced five slabs as against the existing three slabs. With
the increase in tariff, about 22 per cent of the transmission and
distribution losses will be covered.
Announcing the hike, which will come into effect after one week
of MPSEB official notice, the commission chairman justice Sachindra
Dwivedi said, “The commission has tried to keep the power
tariff low after discussing the proposal with number of public organisations.
“If these recommendations were implemented, the revenue losses
of MPSEB would come down by Rs 672 crore,” Dwivedi said adding,
the state electricity board’s transmission and distribution
losses were expected to be around 51 per cent in 2000-01.
Courtesy: Business Standard dated October 2001
PRIVATISATION OF SEBS NO SOLUTION, SAYS PLAN PANEL
The Planning Commission has said privatisation of the corporatised
state electricity boards is no solution to the problems of the power
sector. In fact, an in-efficient private utility may be a greater
drag on the economy than a government run company.
POWER MINISTRY HITS STREET WITH REFORMS CAMPAIGN
The power ministry had launched a 45-day mass awareness programme
beginning 15th October 2001 on the need of implementing power sector
reforms, during the course of which around 2000 road shows was held
across the country.
LETS GET IT RIGHT (FKTU)
Privatisation of public enterprises – it hasn’t been
reform, rather sales.
Who’s responsible for making public enterprises a target
of criticism?
To correct these very problems, we need reform.
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