Recently Government of India electricity amendment bill 2022 could not be passed in parliament this season and is now with the standing committee for a wider consultation
1) The bill don't have any provisions for infrastructure development from private players means they had to pay only wheeling charges to discom for flow of electricity i.e. in the tune of 20-25 paise per unit. Government utilities have developed it's network by investing almost hundreds of 1000 crores in maintaining and development of network.Â
2) According to the EA -2022 many private players will come to business then demand and load growth takes place. To meet out load growth only the government utilities have to invest and there is no provisions to take back of this hard earned money except 20-25 paise per unit . It's very likely to ruin government utilities funds. So it will be real freebies to private players who are capable to pay .
3) Electricity sector is completely a wired business so it's really unnatural to compared with telecom sector business.
4) Even today there is no methodology available at 220 KV and 400 KV level in India for proper accounting of flow of energy roughly taking 4% loss whether the power plant located near to load centre or further most distance . So CERC shifted to Pan Cake to POC and currently to GNA regulation . Still there is not any concrete mechanism available to calculate individual power plant generation throughout the nation.
5)Â There is always monopoly around the world in infrastructure sector i.e Railways, telecom and power sector. So role of regulator is important rather than changing public monopoly to private monopoly.
6) As universal service obligations applicable to Government utilities. In this bill. So private utility will come and do the profit making business only.
7) This bill is prejudice in nature i.e. it will deteriorate government infrastructure to benefits private.
8) It's a government utility across the nation from almost 30 yrs that are continuously giving 16% return on equity. No one investment have given such wonderful return.
9) As on today almost 33% of total CT- PT that are installed at export and import points at inter district level are defective only assumptions are made to do energy accounting. Suppose if such bill was passed approximately 100-200 export import points came in picture then how the energy accounting can be done it's a big question mark.
10) As the power market of India is not perfect market many government utilities purchased power at cost of 20/- per unit and supplied to every basket of consumer categories. If supposed private discoms came in such situations where will be tariff ?Â
11) Recently private utilities deployed in Odisha and some part of Gujarat applied for tariff hikes where as the state run utilities UP lower the tariff.
12) As per study in foreign countries people expenditures on power bills only 2-5% cross the globe from their income but in case of India its 15-20% . If suppose tariffs gets increased in above situations then what will happen to common man of this country.
13)Â In past we have seen at various occasions when private players working at different districts ( Ujjain and sagour ) across the nation have ruined infrastructure and absconded and then Government utilities are giving supply with responsible manner .
14) Government utilities are running with shortage of almost 48% across the nation and almost 20-25% are in the verge of retirement. Even after it government utilities are performing well.
15) Even from the report of Mackenzie investment conventional energy utilizes mostly in Industries , Transportation then in power sector i.e. approximately 42% contribution. Despite of it ,it's government run utilities working hard to achieve net-zero by giving above return of 16% .
16) As per RECL chairman Mr Sanjay Malhotra none of the government utilities defaulted at any financial institutions.Â