Urgent reforms needed in power sector
By siliconindia   |   Monday, 07 October 2002, 19:30 IST
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CALIFORNIA: Union Minister for Power Anant G Geete said there was an urgent need to focus on power sector reforms in India. He emphasized that the time has come when reforms should focus on commercial viability of power sector especially on the distribution side. He was speaking at a round table on “Power Sector Reforms in India" organized by the Asia Pacific Research Center (APRC) at Stanford University, California. The minister was part of a twenty four-member Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) delegation consisting of senior representatives of state and private sector utilities, regulators and financial institutions from India. Representatives of technology-focused companies, service providers, policy planners and researchers attended the round table. Stating that power sector's viability and sustainability is the key to economic growth in India, Geete emphasized that the process of reforms in the power sector must consolidate so as to become irreversible. He noted that the sector is on its way to achieving a stable business environment that would facilitate investment. The minister highlighted the need to achieve capacity addition along with efficient management of distribution to ensure that a reliable supply. He noted that good quality power should be available to everybody at affordable prices and was hopeful that the measures initiated in the power sector would help achieve the goals of power for all by 2012 with a great degree of self-sufficiency. As part of the discussion, a presentation was also made by the Ministry of Power about the power sector scenario in India. The presentation highlighted the status of power sector reforms in India and the various initiatives taken at federal and the state level. The inevitability of metering, the need for strengthening the regulatory mechanism with independent and transparent functioning and the need to understand the issues of rural electricity distribution including adoption of distributed generation were among the topics raised at the round table. APRC also shared its study findings on rural development with an emphasis on transition from non-commercial operations to a commercially oriented business operation. The center also presented its finding about revenue realization from the weaker section of consumers including the ones engaged in agriculture. Further, the consequences of various models of reforms including those suggested by the World Bank and reform processes in developing countries were identified as areas of interest to APRC. The discussions also touched upon the role of regulators, the process of their selection, and independence in their operations were exchanged. Participants also explained technological developments that can be used to ensure high quality power supply including video detection of faults, radon techniques for underground cable imagery, demand side management and cost effective state-of-the-art` metering systems. The delegation also had detailed meetings with Bechtel Enterprises, Nexant Inc., Pacific Gas & Electric, California Energy Commission, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Edison Agricultural Technology Application Center, Public Utility Commission of Texas, Electric Reliability Council of Texas and Texas Electric Cooperatives Inc.