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Punjab opposes Centre’s amendments to existing power tariff policy December 01, 2018,

Posted On : December 10, 2018

New Delhi: Punjab has put up a strong opposition against the recent proposal by Union government to pass 2018 amendments to powertariff policy under which a single tariff regime is to be introduced across the nation. The proposed amendments will give more powers to Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) while leaving State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) redundant. 

Under the new regime both the domestic and commercial consumers will be charged same amount for the electricity across the country.

State cabinet minister Brahm Mohindra said chief minister Capt Amarinder Singhhad recently shot a letter to Prime Minister Narender Modi opposing the move as power sector is covered under the concurrent list and the decision making is the prerogative of the states and not the Centre. He said the CM has also written to the chief ministers across all states in the country to oppose the move following which the Prime Minister has assured that the matter would be reviewed.

The matter came up for discussion during the Annual General Body meeting of the PSEB Engineers association where Mohindra was the chief guest along with Punjab minister for animal husbandry Balbir Sidhu, who was the guest of honour.

Later, speaking to the media persons, Mohindra said it was a serious issues and the Chief Minister has taken a strong note of situation. “Under no circumstances, the centre would be allowed to take over the rights vested with the states as per the Indian constitution,” he said.

The Union ministry of power has recently proposed modifications to the tariff policy which it claimed were aimed at ‘simplification of tariff categories and rationalization of retail tariff’ on the basis of sanctioned load and consumption instead of commercial and domestic users. The new tariff policy being mooted by the union government will be applicable across the country.

Under the proposed draft amendment of 2018 Tariff Policy, the will to fix new power tariffs will rest with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) and not with the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs). This would make all SERCs subservient to policy dictated by the CERC and the concept of independent electricity regulator will be over and replaced by a central authority, said VK Gupta, spokesman for the all India Power Engineers Federation, who was present during the annual general body meeting of the PSEB Engineers’ Association.

The proposed tariff structure will do away with the concept of different tariff for different customer categories. This intends to create five load categories for all consumers and one slab for each load category.

At present, as per the original legislation on Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act of 1998 that provides for CERC to decide tariff for central government stations and transmission and for projects with multi-state ownership, while the state electricity regulatory commissions decide the consumer tariff and generation tariff at the state level by distancing tariff from political forces.

Mohindra said similarly the central government was planning to do away with the medical council of India and instead constitute a National Medical Council in which Punjab has not been given a single representations. This again an infringement of the state’s rights and Punjab has vehemently opposed the proposal.

 

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  5. All India Power Engineers Federation on Tuesday condemned the central government''s move to amend the National Electricity Policy "to facilitate privatisation". According to a statement by the AIPEF, the proposed changes require extensive discussions as such time for submission of comments should be six months. When fundamental changes are being introduced by way of privatization of the power sector, there is no basis to rush through more so under extreme distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. "All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) condemns the government of India''s move to amend the National Electricity Policy to facilitate the privatization of the power sector," the statement said. The body alleged that this is a clear attempt to introduce privatization through the backdoor and deserves to be scrapped. The purpose of the central government is not to review or revise the existing National Electricity Policy but the total replacement of existing policy with a new policy to be recommended by the expert group so as to achieve privatization, the body alleged. As per Electricity Act 2003, National Electricity Policy is to be prepared in consultation with the state governments and Central Electricity Authority (CEA), a statutory body. However, the body said that the CEA is not included in the proposed schedule of discussion. Further, only 5 states have been included in an expert group instead of all the states, it added. K Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser, has stated that India is the only country that readily implemented a slew of reforms and used this crisis to herald a change in India''s economic thinking, it said. The strategy of government seems to be “never waste a crisis” and use the crisis of pandemic to streamroll so-called reforms by way of privatizing, it alleged. The draft proposal is of serious nature for which the present situation of a pandemic is a serious constraint, it stated. The Ministry of Power has once again found peak pandemic time as an opportunity in crisis to launch the draft amendments to National Electricity Policy, it lamented. Once the draft policy is finalised, the notified policy would have the status of “subordinate legislation”, and for this reason, the matters need to deliberate as in the case of the legislation itself or as in the case of amendment in the Act itself, it opined. Draft national electricity policy is pushing for more private participation in the power sector and launching sell out of public assets as at Chandigarh and Dadra Nagar Haveli, it noted. The preferred route being suggested are failed models like the franchisee system, transferring distribution responsibility to a private party, and separation of carriage (lines) and content (supply) business, it opined. Since the existing Policy is in force since February 2005 there was no emergency to totally replace it, while power engineers and workers as front line workers are already stressed in maintaining power continuity, it added All India Power Engineers Federation on Tuesday condemned the central government''s move to amend the National Electricity Policy "to facilitate privatisation". According to a statement by the AIPEF, the proposed changes require extensive discussions as such time for submission of comments should be six months. When fundamental changes are being introduced by way of privatization of the power sector, there is no basis to rush through more so under extreme distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. "All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) condemns the government of India''s move to amend the National Electricity Policy to facilitate the privatization of the power sector," the statement said. The body alleged that this is a clear attempt to introduce privatization through the backdoor and deserves to be scrapped. The purpose of the central government is not to review or revise the existing National Electricity Policy but the total replacement of existing policy with a new policy to be recommended by the expert group so as to achieve privatization, the body alleged. As per Electricity Act 2003, National Electricity Policy is to be prepared in consultation with the state governments and Central Electricity Authority (CEA), a statutory body. However, the body said that the CEA is not included in the proposed schedule of discussion. Further, only 5 states have been included in an expert group instead of all the states, it added. K Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser, has stated that India is the only country that readily implemented a slew of reforms and used this crisis to herald a change in India''s economic thinking, it said. The strategy of government seems to be “never waste a crisis” and use the crisis of pandemic to streamroll so-called reforms by way of privatizing, it alleged. The draft proposal is of serious nature for which the present situation of a pandemic is a serious constraint, it stated. The Ministry of Power has once again found peak pandemic time as an opportunity in crisis to launch the draft amendments to National Electricity Policy, it lamented. Once the draft policy is finalised, the notified policy would have the status of “subordinate legislation”, and for this reason, the matters need to deliberate as in the case of the legislation itself or as in the case of amendment in the Act itself, it opined. Draft national electricity policy is pushing for more private participation in the power sector and launching sell out of public assets as at Chandigarh and Dadra Nagar Haveli, it noted. The preferred route being suggested are failed models like the franchisee system, transferring distribution responsibility to a private party, and separation of carriage (lines) and content (supply) business, it opined. Since the existing Policy is in force since February 2005 there was no emergency to totally replace it, while power engineers and workers as front line workers are already stressed in maintaining power continuity, it added