AIPEF chairman Shailendra Dubey pick holes in NITI Aayog's draft, demand changes
Hyderabad: The proposed National Electricity Policy prepared by the NITI Aayog is being opposed by the power engineers. All-India Power Engineers Federation chairman Shailendra Dubey said a nationwide agitation was being planned against the proposed policy.
He demanded modification of the electricity policy and the tariff policy and wanted state power utilities to be protected.
The federation objected to NITI Aayog drawing up the policy and wanted planning for the sector to be in the hands of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), as before. The CEA has been without a chairman since January 2017 and the federation wanted the post to be filled soon.
Speaking to this newspaper Mr Dubey said that a recent meeting of the federation's federal executive had reviewed the electricity policy and integration of power utilities and submitted a memorandum to energy minister Piyush Goyal.
“AIPEF along with other power workers’ federations is planning a nationwide agitation against the wrong policies of the Centre which has created a situation in which, despite being a power surplus country, 300 million people still have no access to electricity,” Mr Dubey said.
He said that despite surplus capacity, the financial condition of several state power utilities was deteriorating due to the high cost of power contracted under earlier Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). The Centre should review the PPAs keeping the financial viability of the utilities in mind.
Mr Dubey said that the state discoms must be given the option to state their power requirement from private power producers, and the capacity charges for that month should be payable only to that extent.
The surrendered capacity should be at the the disposal of the private power plant, and the developer should be free to sell it to any purchaser at any rate. If the developer does not agree to this monthly requisition procedure, the state government should take measures to cancel the PPA.
He said some states like West Bengal had taken steps to cancel PPAs. A consensus amongst all states must be developed so that a common procedure is followed for cancellation of PPAs.
