Unilateral attempt to pass Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 will be opposed- AIPEF

Unilateral attempt to pass Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 will be opposed- AIPEF

Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ January 5,2024

Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 which aims  at handing over all profit making areas to private houses is pending with the standing committee on energy and meanwhile the central government is continuing with its privatization agenda through the Electricity (Amendment) Rules . Any unilateral attempt to pass the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 in the Budget session will be  strongly opposed, said Shailandra Dubey, Chairman All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF).

Large scale privatization of transmission is going on in almost every province in the name of tariff based competitive bidding. Despite Coal India having sufficient coal reserves, public sector thermal power plants of the states are being instructed to import coal. While a particular company is making huge profits due to over-invoicing in coal imports, the burden of increasing cost of power generation is falling on the  financially poor power distribution companies of the state. The parallel licence in distribution of power is being done at the cost of the state Discoms  network.

Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 was presented in Parliament in August 2022, and due to stiff  opposition by all political parties in the Lok Sabha , the bill was referred to the Standing Committee of the Parliament on energy. The Standing Committee   has not yet submitted its report on Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022. The Standing Committee will give the desired  report as and when desired by the government.

V K Gupta spokesperson AIPEF said that the Standing Committee has not yet given time for talks to the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) or any other power workers’ federation. The biggest stakeholders in the power sector are electricity consumers and power workers who have been sidelined . It may be mentioned that  the Standing Committee has held detailed talks with representative organizations of corporate houses, banks, and the Ministry of Power.

Dubey said that the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022  is an attempt to push a failed experiment to benefit private players at the cost of state Discoms. Experiments of urban distribution Franchisee miserably failed in various cities across the country. State Governments were compelled to cancel these agreements.

Unilateral attempt to pass Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 will be opposed- AIPEF. V K Gupta said that now through the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022 government  is pushing the same failed experiment aimed at handing over all profit making areas to private houses.