The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Reforms improved Capital's power situation'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 15, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Reforms improved Capital's power situation'

By Lalit. K. Jha

NEW DELHI, OCT. 14. Residents of the Capital might still be experiencing load-shedding, paying more for the electricity they consume and "running" from pillar to post to get billing errors rectified, but the Delhi Government feels that the situation on the power front has improved considerably more than 26 months after the electricity distribution system in the Capital was privatised.

Though Delhiites are yet to feel the difference and investment in the infrastructure sector has not been to the desired level in hundreds of colonies in Outer, East and South Delhi, besides the Walled City, officials involved with the reforms concede that they had a long way to go even though it was a good beginning.

A reform appraisal report of the power sector prepared by the Delhi Government claimed that two years after the power distribution system was handed over to the private companies, Delhi's power sector reforms are now being "claimed" as a breakthrough.

"The methodology adopted in the Capital has been commended in the report of the Distribution Reform Committee headed by A.K. Basu, then Secretary (Power) and now Chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission," said the report prepared by the Special Secretary (Power), Arun Goyal.

Referring to an independent study carried out on behalf of the Delhi Government, Mr. Goyal said more than four-fifths of the consumers perceive that there are positive connotations of the privatisation. The study also revealed that at the actual level, consumers believe that the staff of the privately-managed discoms have become a little more approachable than it was and complaint are handled a little better. In terms of image, both the NDPL and BSES got better ratings than the erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board.

Though certain major loopholes are still to be plugged, the report claimed that the consumer services had improved since July 2002 when the private discoms came in. These include manifold increase in the number of options for payment of bills, improvement in the billing complaint redressal system, a significant reduction in transformer failure rate and improvement in average response time to attend the breakdowns.

While there has been sufficient addition to the infrastructure such as transformers, feeders, installation of shunt capacitors by the discoms and transformer capacity by the Transco, Mr. Goyal conceded that the financial condition of the latter was in a bad shape because of the loan being given to it under the power sector reforms. "This is being done to avoid sudden tariff shock to the consumers," he said.

One of the major contributions of the power sector reforms during the two years was considerable improvement in the power supply position. Loadshedding that was 558 million units in 2001-2002 has now come down to just 229 million units this year. "This despite the fact that more energy supplied increased from 18,445 MU in 2001-2002 to 20,381 this year," he said.

Even as the report prepared by Mr. Goyal made no mention of the steep increase in power tariff rates during the two years, it patted itself on the back for the considerable reduction in the aggregate technical and commercial losses (AT&C). "It has been reduced slightly more than what was envisaged in restructuring process," it said.

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