AIPEF for review of power sector reforms
Manish Sirhindi /TNS

Panipat, August 28
The All-India Power Engineers’ Federation (APIEF) has called upon the government to review the power sector reforms as these had failed to yield the desired results.

AIPEF secretary-general Shaliendra Dubey said in a statement here today that the policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation in the power sector had completely failed and it was high time that it was reviewed.

He said after unbundling most of the state electricity boards were facing power shortages, outages, load- shedding, poor power and soaring transmission and distribution losses. He claimed many power utilities across the country were faced with a survival crisis due to huge debts. The utilities were surviving on borrowed money and now even banks had started refusing more loans to them.

AIPEF chairman Padamjit Singh said that a number of states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh had adopted the MOU route to allow setting up of new thermal projects. The setting up of projects without the bidding process would escalate the generation cost, leading to higher power tariffs which would directly affect the common consumer.

He said some states had allowed private players to set up new thermal projects with huge capacities, which was being perceived as corporate corruption by the APIEF. He said even the union government had filed an appeal before the Supreme Court in favour of the competitive bidding process as against the MOU route.

The backdoor entry of private companies in industrial cities and urban areas by way of franchisee is a major cause of concern for the AIPEF. The franchisee system had shown negative results in states where it had been introduced The revenue being earned by the franchisee was not being passed on to utilities on one pretwxt or the other.

The franchisees who got cheaper power and all facilities sold power to consumers at higher rates. Thus privates companies were earning handsomely while the utilities were facing bankruptcy.