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The Ministry of Power has formulated a six-level intervention strategy for distribution reforms. Stating this at the Consultative Committee meeting of Members of Parliament attached to the Ministry of Power this morning, the Union Power Minister, Shri P.M. Sayeed said that the accelerated power development and reforms programme was introduced in order to remove the malaise in the state electricity boards. He said the new intervention is aimed at ensuring accountability, deliverability and performance at all levels. The measures proposed are at the National, State, SEB, distribution, feeder and consumer levels. The Minister recalled that at the time of independence, the generation capacity was 751MW whereas today it had gone up to about 1,14,000MW installed capacity. Although the generation had increased, he said end-users suffer long power cuts due to transmission and distribution losses. Due to high technical losses, the SEB were in a poor financial state and were not able to attract investments.
Participating in the discussions, the members desired to know the achievement in reducing losses and increasing availability of power after the reforms programme had been introduced. Some members also wanted to know as to how the scheme of investment and incentives is determined and what was the procedure of release of the funds. In this connection, they stressed the need for energy audit and measurable outcomes. Members also desired that they should be involved to a greater level in district level monitoring committees to ensure effective implementation and to monitor the position relating to theft of electricity.
The following members attended the meeting:-
S/Shri Dr. (Col.) Dhani Ram Shandil, M. Pallam Raju Mallipudi, Suresh Chandel, K.M. Kader Mohideen, E. Ponnuswamy, R.P. Goenka, Harish Rawat, Dipankar Mukherjee, Basudeb Acharia, K.S. Rao, Ms. Neeta Pateriya.
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