AIPEF Urges Khattar to End Power Sector Privatisation

New Delhi, Jul 4 (PTI) The All India Power Engineers' Federation (AIPEF) on Thursday urged Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to end privatisation and deploy qualified engineers in top management of the corporations to make the country self-reliant in the power sector.

An AIPEF delegation led by its chairman Shailendra Dubey submitted a memorandum to the power minister, raising various issues concerning the sector, a statement said.

It said that in the larger interest of the energy sector and electricity consumers, the proposal for Electricity (Amendment) Bill should not be brought now.

Also, the failed experiment of privatisation and urban distribution franchise like in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, should be withdrawn, it added.

It also demanded that in view of the continuously increasing production of coal, instructions to the power generation houses to import coal compulsorily should be withdrawn.

The body also said that to make the energy sector strong and self-reliant, expert power engineers should be posted to top management positions in all the power corporations of the country.

Besides Chairman, the delegation included Secretary General P Ratnakar Rao, Chief Patron Padamjit Singh, Satyapal, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Chaturvedi and AK Jain.

The memorandum stated that the main objective of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill is to give licences to private houses in the field of electricity distribution and allow them to use the networks of public sector electricity distribution companies. Notably, it was not mandatory for private sector power houses to provide electricity to all categories of consumers.

AIPEF alleged that private sector companies would use the network of government discoms to provide electricity to profitable industrial and commercial consumers, which would worsen the financial condition of the government sector.

The memorandum stated that Urban Distribution Franchise was experimented in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and some other states but this experiment was a complete failure and the agreements of most of the franchises have been cancelled.

Similarly, the entire electricity distribution sector in Odisha was privatised. This experiment also failed miserably and all the licences of Reliance Power were cancelled in 2015, it stated.

Again in 2020, the entire distribution area in Odisha was given to Tata Power. Despite this, there has been no significant improvement, it stated.

Therefore, it demanded withdrawal of these failed experiments.

AIPEF noted that Coal India's production is continuously increasing. Coal India also claims that there is enough coal available for thermal power plants in the country.

In such a situation, AIPEF said it is not appropriate to make it mandatory to import coal for thermal power plants and the government's order in this regard should be withdrawn.

Recently, through an order, the Union Ministry of Power extended the order to import 4 per cent coal till October 2024.

AIPEF also noted that if cheap electricity is to be provided to the common consumers, then generation companies of states will have to be further strengthened and they will have to give new projects in more quantity.

Apart from this, it demanded review of the 25-year "expensive" power purchase agreements made with private houses, and said power distribution companies of states should be allowed to review such PPAs.