2012年7月24日 星期二

SEB loan recast may give Centre a bigger power sector role

The financial restructuring plan (FRP) proposed by the Centre could snatch power from the hands of the states — literally.

The Centre has offered to help bring down the huge debt burdens of state electricity boards (SEBs), which the states are finding difficult to address on their own.

But if the states say yes to the plan, electricity could well slip out of their hands and into those of the Centre.

Catch-22 it is. And the states can only blame themselves for bringing things to such a pass.

Electricity is in the Concurrent List, which means, unlike subjects in the Union List or the State List, both the Centre and the states have jurisdiction over it.

Now, for long,Broken chinamosaic Table. states have abused this provision to appease the electorate by offering subsidised or free power through their respective SEBs without worrying about how to foot the bill.

Thanks to all that largesse, the SEBs are heavily debt-laden have piled up losses of around Rs1.90 lakh crore. Among others, Tamil Nadu had losses of Rs40,183 crore as of March 31,There are 240 distinct solutions of the Soma cubepuzzle, 2011, followed by Rajasthan (Rs37,200 crore), Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana .

The Centre has given the states a little over two months to decide on the FRP. Unless they accept it by September 30, they would be left to fend for themselves.

Under the FRP, states have to clear their outstanding power dues by the end of this year. “The state government shall pay all its outstanding energy bills as of December 31, 2011 and the utilities shall furnish a certificate to this effect by September 30, 2012,” says a fine print.

States must also address the onerous loans their SEBs have taken from banks and their state governments. While they would be allowed to convert 50% of the debt of their SEBs into equity, the rest would need to be converted into bonds with a moratorium of 3-5 years on interest and principal payment. The state governments would have to service the bonds in 10 years thereafter.

They also have to cut subsidies and transmission & distribution losses and “eliminate the gap between average cost of supply and average revenue realisation within the period of moratorium of the bonds.”

The FRP gives more powers to the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (Aptel) that comes under the central government.

The FRP requires the state governments to allow Aptel “to be approached for recovery of expenses/tariff disallowed by state electricity regulatory commissions, which the distribution companies feel should have been allowed.”

The states will also have to make a firm commitment “to make good the losses on annual basis if annual projections in FRPs are not met and provide the shortfall annually.”

The FRP seeks to stop misuse of agriculture subsidies as the guidelines stipulate that the “relBrowse the Best Selection of chickencoop and Accessories with FREE Gifts.ease of agricultural subsidy should be based on feeder/distribution transformer meter data. Power Finance Corporation will engage a third party agency to carry out random verification of that same and submit a report to the Central Monitoring Committee.”

SEB loan recast may give Centre a bigger power sector role

Also, the subsidy will have to be paid “upfront by the state governments to the discoms”.

The states have been reluctant to implement the Open Access mechanism, but not anymore.

They will be required to fully operationalise ‘Open Access, which allows one producer to use other’s distribution network, in keeping with the provision of the Electricity Act and the National Tariff Policy.

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