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Ordinance soon for power transmission corporation

T. Ramakrishnan

Deadline for revamping TNEB extended by 45 days

CHENNAI: An ordinance will be promulgated soon to establish the power transmission corporation, according to Electricity Minister Arcot N. Veeraswamy.

The creation of the corporation has become a necessity because of the legal requirements stipulated in the Electricity Act, 2003.

Communique

A few days ago, the State government received a communication from the Centre, extending the deadline for revamping the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board by 45 days. The present deadline, set in December last, expires on Monday (June 9).

As per the law, State Electricity Boards could no longer remain vertically integrated, performing the functions of generation, transmission and distribution together.

The law also prohibited utilities engaged in transmission from trading in electricity.

The Act originally prescribed one year for transition. Since the period came to an end on June 9, 2004, some States including Tamil Nadu, had been getting extension of the deadline from the Centre every six months. In the last four years, many States including Maharashtra had restructured their SEBs.

Asked why the State government decided to adopt the legislation mode instead of the earlier proposal of issuing an executive order to effect the revamp of the power utility, he said that this was to ensure that the proposed transmission corporation remained under the public sector. It did not want successive governments to privatise it.

Pressure on States

According to B.S. Meel, general secretary of the Electricity Employees Federation of India (Centre of Indian Trade Unions), the Centre had been exerting pressure on States to restructure the SEBs. Late last month, Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, at a meeting with union leaders, highlighted the government’s keenness to complete the process of restructuring.

The federation’s position is that there should be no unbundling of the Boards. The States should be given the option of retaining the present character of their power utilities. On August 6, a demonstration would be organised in front of Parliament to protest the move to restructure SEBs, Mr. Meel said.

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