Standing Com clears Elec Bill, cabinet to take up on Feb 11

NEW DELHI: Power Minister Anant Geete said the Electricity Bill, aimed at improving the power sector, would be considered in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament beginning on February 17.
"The Standing Committee has cleared the Bill with a few suggestions and we are taking it up in the Cabinet on February 11," Geete told reporters on the sidelines a CII conference on the power sector.
The long-standing hurdles to improvement of the power sector would be eliminated once the Electricity Bill became an Act, Geete said and hoped that it would be cleared in the coming session of Parliament.
Geete said the sector required huge investments from domestic private players as well foreign direct investment, and this would come only if foreign investors were ensured security of their money invested in India.
"And for that this sector must become commercially viable. We are taking steps in this direction continuously and we need support from the states and State Electricity Boards," the minister said.
Earlier, power secretary R V Shahi said passage of the Electricity Bill would be followed by a National Tariff Policy in order to bring about uniformity in the tariff fixation procedure by state regulatory commissions.
Shahi said there were more than 25 state regulatory commissions and there was a need to put in place some mechanism or guidelines for them to set the tariff structure to maintain uniformity among the states.
With regard to Availability Based Tariff norms recommended by The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), Shahi said "there is no ambiguity about it as the tariffs have already been implemented by the generation companies and results are there for everybody to see."
He also indicated that Centre would extend all help to states which put their house in order in terms of time-bound reform programme outlined by the Ministry of Power for the purpose of financial assistance under Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP).
He also called upon the private industry to take active participation during unbundling of SEBs. Citing the example of Delhi Vidyut Board, Shahi said for privatising its distribution division only two private players came forward-- Tatas and BSES-- despite the fact that there was a consensus among various industrial associations in this regard.
Shahi lauded states including Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for steps in checking theft of electricity and imposing tariff on agricultural consumers.
He appealed to other states to take similar action to make the power sector efficient and commercially viable.