The last three decades have exposed the inefficiency of the central government’s reform programme in electricity planning, power sector financing, national tariff policy, and in developing an equitable national renewable energy policy. The complete privatisation of the power sector is no reform, said VK Gupta, spokesperson of the All-India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF), in an interview with Daily World.

The present set of reforms is nothing but a desperate attempt by the government to cover up the policy miscalculations of the past decades while simultaneously protecting the interests of private power generators at the cost of state distribution companies. The proposed centralization of powers in the hands of the central government has been opposed by all non-BJP states. The entire burden of the unrealistically ambitious renewable targets set ostensibly to please the international community is sought to be passed on to

the states.

Gupta said the Electricity Act (EA) 2003 came into being in June 2003 and all state electricity boards have been unbundled into a number of separate entities. To enhance the generation, licensing was done away and there was a mushroom growth of thermal plants across the country in the private sector. But due to faulty execution of policies, and the signing of one-sided power purchase agreements with deemed generation clause, the financial health of the power sector deteriorated. The banking sector was burdened with non-performing assets being generated by the power sector, he added.

Gupta said the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was introduced in the Lok Sabha seeking amendments in the Electricity Act, 2003. The major thrust areas are introducing carriage and content separation, enabling open access, competition, and greater impetus for renewable energy. Large-scale protests were seen by employees and engineers against the amendments. The bill lapsed with the tenure of Lok Sabha coming to end.

Last year a draft of Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 was circulated. The draft calls for the creation of an electricity contract enforcement authority (ECEA), proposes a National Renewable Energy Policy and mandates payment security as necessary for scheduling of electricity, and facilitates cross-border electricity trade. The draft seeks privatization of all the discoms by way of sub-licensing and franchisees. Eleven states and one union territory opposed many provisions of the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020and termed it against the spirit of the Constitution.

Now the draft amendment Bill 2021 had been prepared with the intention to completely privatize power distribution in all the states. This has been circulated to the selected few and the union power minister held a discussion with all the state power secretaries and CMDs of Discom and regulators. He said the Power Minister has claimed that the Discoms inefficiency is the result of its monopoly and the government wants to replace its monopoly by competition and hence reforms in the power sector or essential. The promise of competition is just a slogan to justify the privatization of the power sector, he claimed.