REVIEW ELECTRICITY ACT

Bardhan And Balanandan Write To  PM

A B Bardhan and E Balanandan, CPI and CPI(M) leaders and office bearers of Electricity employees federations, have issued the following joint statement on September 4, 2005.

AFTER claiming that dismantling and unbundling the Electricity Boards, and parceling them out to private parties would bring efficiency, reduce transmission losses and after ruling out any subsidy by the government, the Delhi government has now decided to subsidise the Discoms in Delhi from its revenues. Already they had paid whacking sum to these private companies since the takeover. Now the government is ready to bail them so that they do not make any losses. The tax payers money is to help out the companies and ensure their profits.

The federations of Electricity Employees and Engineers had all this time pointed out that unbundling and privatisation as demanded by the new Electricity Act -2003 would only mean ever-rising tariff for the consumers.

Appointing a Regulatory Authority would mean nothing more than shifting responsibility and the blame for the rising tariff from the shoulders of the government and the private party to the shoulders of the Regulatory Authority. We have witnessed this unseemly quarrel now in Delhi. It is the people who by their determined agitation have compelled the authorities to roll back the tariff hike at present. But is it the last word on the matter?  What about the new hikes that are to come? In Rajasthan also a demand has been raised about rolling back the tariff hike. Thousands of kisans demonstrated before the state assembly.

In Mumbai it has been seen that the Electricity Board restored power promptly after the deluge, while Reliance took a few days.

The Electricity Employees and Engineers Federation had after long discussion with the prime minister and the power minister made them to give a solemn assurance that the implementation of the results of the new policy will be reviewed in the case of Orissa, Delhi etc within six months. More than three months have already passed and nothing has been done as yet. The experiences of Delhi, Mumbai and Orissa show that privatisation is not the solution of the power crisis. Therefore the implementation and the results of the Electricity Act 2003 have to be reviewed, and necessary changes have to be made. We demand that this should be done in a transparent manner as assured.

We have also sent a letter to the prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh which also stated that “newspapers and several prominent people have also started questioning the wisdom of unbundling and privatising this vital industry, and asking for a restoration of the boards with whatever changes that are needed in their set up and work. We hope you will consider our requests.”(INN)