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The Union Power Minister, Shri P.M. Sayeed has said that the concerns expressed by some of the State Governments and others regarding certain provisions of the Electricity Act are being addressed by various policy instruments. The Minister was speaking at the CII National Conference here today. The Minister said that in the last few months, issues concerning cross subsidy, captive power, open access regulatory uncertainty and the approach to tariff determination and rural electricity supply have been raised but these issues are being addressed in the National Electricity Policy, the Tariff Policy, Rural Electricity Supply Policy, Policy on competitive bidding and the rules under the Electricity Act, 2003. He said that though the concerns are genuine, the remedy is not necessarily amendment to the act so long as the statutory documents required under the Act take care of these concerns. The National Electricity Policy is at a very advanced stage. The final draft, after taking care of the comments of various State Government, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, Central Electricity Authority and other agencies, are ready and after due approval of the Cabinet, it should be possible to notify the same shortly. This will be followed by Tariff Policy and other policy documents.
Speaking on the challenges before the power sector, he said that the major challenge was to provide competitive power to industry and household while ensuring reliability and quality of supply. He said in order to facilitate development of private generation projects an inter-institutional group has been set up under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Power. From January to June, 2004, it has been possible to financially close 11 private power generation projects of almost 4000 MW capacity.
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