Proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003: Details

April 23: A committee has been constituted to examine the proposed amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003. The amendments, which were suggested by the working group on formulation of the 12th five year plan, will be evaluated by the committee, which will then submit its report within a span of three months. Some of the proposed amendments to the Act are given as follows:
8Section 11(1) of the Act will be re-worded as "The appropriate government may specify that a generating company shall, in extraordinary circumstances operate and maintain any generating station in accordance with the direction of that government". The purpose of this is to ensure that powers of the appropriate government to issue directions in genuine extraordinary circumstances are not diluted and at the same time, the power is not misused to curb open access.
8Section 89(6) will be amended to make way for a new provision which will state that "The performance of the Regulatory Commissions shall be reviewed annually by a multi-disciplinary body on the basis of performance evaluation matrix and report to the appropriate government for necessary action".
8The working group has also suggested that an energy sector regulator may be made created through legislation to ensure CERC additional functions till the time energy sector regulator is set up.