Amended electricity Act sparks debate: States feel 'powerless'

OVER-CENTRALISATION: Centre promises winter session debate

- ADITI PHADNIS & SHREYA

In the last session of Parliament (monsoon session), the Ministry of Power introduced in the 2022, with the stated objective of transforming the power sector, with a special focus on augmenting the power distribution network in the country.

The amendments met with so much pushback, especially from state governments, that it had to be referred to a standing committee, which is thrashing it out behind closed doors. The last time so much political energy was expended in power sector reform was in 2000 when Andhra Pradesh under Chandrababu Naidu launched a programme of unbundling utilities and revising tariffs which led police firing in Hyderabad.

State governments - specifically those run by Opposition parties - claim that the amendments will curtail their powers, especially relating to subsidies given to the farm sector.

Nothing can be further than the truth, explains union Power Minister R K Singh.

"There is no provision to stop subsidies to any section of consumers in the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022. It was provided by the Electricity Act, 2003, that there can be more than one distribution utility in an area. But other distribution companies (discoms) would have to supply power through their own network. Now we have provided for sharing the distribution network (common carrier). It (common carrier) would charge for wheeling power of other discoms," the minister said at a public engagement in Delhi, earlier this month.

But state governments are not so sanguine about the benign nature of amendments.