Letter to CM by power expert-centre, not the consumers, should bear a portion of Discom losses – EAS Sarma
Kanwar Inder Singh/ April 25,2023
The Centre, not the consumers, should bear a portion of Discom losses, said E A S Sarma former Secretary Power in a letter to the Chief Minister Punjab and others. He also urged that states should take up with the Ministry of Power unilateral diktats issued by state from time to time, which in turn impose a huge cost burden on the consumers.
V K Gupta Spokesperson All India Power Engineers Federation said that the Ministry of Power in its draft Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2023 has asked state governments to pass on 50% of the losses incurred by Discoms to consumers and has sought the comments of the states by May 1.
EAS Sarma wrote that the stand taken by the Ministry of Power is not only unilateral but it also ignores the fact that a large portion of the losses suffered by Discoms is attributable to obligations imposed by the Centre unfairly on state power utilities.
The Ministry of Power has directed the State Discoms to absorb electricity from centralised solar power generation plants, from which, the unit cost of electricity delivered at the consumer’s end is high due to the low capacity utilisation of large solar plants. As a result, the State electricity utilities are often forced to deny themselves the option to procure electricity from cheaper sources.
The recent coal shortages faced by thermal power plants arose as a result of the centre’s mismanagement of domestic coal supplies and railway movement of coal. Pretending that it had nothing to do with the crisis, the centre imposed an obligation on the states to import coal , some of mines are owned by domestic big business houses.
80% of the cost of electricity delivered by Discoms is attributable to the cost of generation of electricity. The centre’s approach to privatise electricity generation has resulted in the states having to enter into regressive power purchase agreements (PPAs) with private companies leading to steeply increase in the average cost of electricity generation. When some states tried to renegotiate the PPAs to reduce the costs, the Ministry of Power tried to prevent them from renegotiating the PPAs.
Ministry of Power has been issuing diktats under Section 11 of the Electricity Act of 2003 to state power generation utilities imposing various obligations and it may not have the authority under that Section to issue such directives.
(royalpatiala.in News)
