ELECTRICITY REFORMS, PRICING AND POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT - FEW THOUGHTS FOR CONSIDERATION

摘要

Electricity pricing basically envelops three sectors - Generation, Transmission and Distribution. All these cumulatively affect the ultimate consumer. Decision of electricity pricing has been historically based either on affordability of the same by the consumer or the historical cost involved, Attempts have not been made to create resources in the power sector resulting in the sector always starving for funds, affecting the development of the power sector as a whole whether it is generation, transmission or distribution. The country's GDP growth is very much linked with the industrial development, which again is paramountly dependent on the development of electricity, Tile demand projections have been subdued and do not take into account the hidden demands, which could result in more industrial development keeping in view more availability of the electricity. More the electricity, more the industrial development and more the GDP growth. Human resources are not constraint to technical knowledge. The financial resources (black money also taken into account) needs to be constructively utilized for development of the country, For example, the unaccounted money in India is estimated to be Rs. 350 to 700 thousand crores which is more than the combined revenue of the Central and State Governments in the last fiscal year. Can this unaccounted money be diverted towards infrastructural development. Moreover, as per PHDCCI study the investment would increase by 2.9% of GDP and GDP growth by 1.3% if corruption index improves by 15%, i.e., India is losing at least Rs. 63800 crores worth of additional investment per annum which is roughly three times the foreign direct investment (FDI) we are attracting and now Rs. 28,600 crores of consequent national income per annum.