The parliamentary committee on subordinate legislation headed by its Chairman, Sardar Pratap Singh Bajwa on Thursday completed its 4-day visit to the Valley after meeting the electricity stakeholders of the country here.
Those who were present include Joint Secretary, Power, GoI; Principal Secretary JKPDD; Secretary Central Electricity Regulatory Commission; representatives of the PSUs namely National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Power Finance Corporation (PFC), Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL), Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) Limited, Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Limited and J&K Power Development Corporation.
The committee members had a threadbare discussion on certain rules/regulations governing the power sector of the nation. They also enquired and sought clarifications about certain issues from the officers and management of the power sector in both government and PSUs.
Defining the purpose behind the constitution of this committee the Chairman said, “This Committee has been constituted to scrutinize and report to the Rajya Sabha whether the powers to make rules, regulations, bye-laws, etc conferred by the Constitution or delegated by Parliament, are being properly exercised by the executive authorities or not”.
The Committee took up for discussion, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Procedure, Terms, and Conditions for grant of trading licence and other related matters) Regulation 2020 with the stakeholders. The Committee further sought clarifications on several points including the background or framing of the regulations, the objectives to be achieved through them, and the infrastructure set up by the Ministry to ensure due compliance of the Regulations.
The officials were encouraged to share their experiences in implementation of the regulations at ground level and what are the practical problems being faced by the stakeholders and how those are being sorted out.
The Joint Secretary, Power, GoI, elaborated that the central government is working on the one nation, one grid, and one frequency. He said that several schemes are in vogue to ensure power supply to all the habitations in India.
The Principal Secretary, JKPDD informed the meeting that J&K is on the path of providing a reliable power supply to its customers at reasonable rates. He said that he represents customers and appreciates the liberal policy of power purchase.
The Principal Secretary also gave out that the UT is going to add substantial chunk of power to its kitty in the next 5 years. He said that it is going to address our power woes to a large extent.
The Secretary CERC briefed the committee that CERC was constituted under the erstwhile Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act (ERC), 1998 with primary responsibility of tariff fixation. The responsibilities of the Commission were later widened to tariff fixation, licensing, development of market, introduction of open access, specifying grid code, adjudication of disputes etc.
He further informed the committee that the rules further empowers the Commission to grant licence to undertake trading in electricity as an electricity trader. Additionally, the Commission is also entrusted with the function to fix the trading margin in the inter-State trading of electricity. He further said that currently there is Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Procedure, Terms and Conditions for grant of trading licence and other related matters) Regulation 2020 governing the trade.
The Committee consists of 15 Members representing different political parties and walks of life. The other members currently on the visit to valley includes Smt Vandana Chavan, Sh. Dushyant Gautam, Dr Vikas Mahatme, Sh. Surendra Singh Nagar, Ram Vichar Netam, Dr Amar Patnaik, Dr Banda Prakash, GVI Narsimha Rao, Sh Tiruchi Siva, Pradeep Tamta, and Sh Vivek K Tankha.
