Thursday, Dec 12, 2002
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002 |
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Karnataka
By Our Staff Correspondent
He said here on Tuesday that the federation's opposition to the Bill, which was modified at least eight times, was because it was anti-people. The passage of the Bill would create a private monopoly, he said. Mr. Naikwadi said that any step taken by the State Government should result in providing quality power at an affordable rate. The privatisation experiment in Orissa had proved costly for the consumer with an increase in tariff of up to 78 per cent. The quality of power had deteriorated, and the Orissa Government's decision was a good example to show that privatisation of the power sector was not in the interests of the common man. Mr. Naikwadi said that the Bill had not considered the report of a worldwide survey. Studies carried out by various associations and organisations across the globe had proved that power should be retained under the public sector. The proposed Bill sought to make power unaffordable to the common man. It also diluted the authority of the CEA, which according to the federation, would be disastrous to the Indian power sector. The CEA had saved over Rs. 9,800 crore by cutting down project costs through its techno-economic clearances. The Bill also did not make it clear as to who would prepare and pursue the power sector plan of the State. Under Section 59 of the ES Act of 1948, State electricity boards (SEBs) were allowed to make ROR of three per cent and above, but this was not allowed to them in the past five decades. All of a sudden, the State government had allowed private companies a profit of 16 per cent. Mr. Naikwadi said it was not possible to fully comply with the ambitious mission statement of the Union Government — Power for all by 2012 — for the reason that such work would require the enhancement of the installed capacity by 1,00,000 MW, which would cost the Government Rs. 8,00,000 crore. In the past five decades, State governments had been able to increase the capacity by one lakh MW and it would be difficult to add one lakh MW of power in just a decade. The federation said that the national supply cost of energy stood at Rs 3.04 per unit while the revenue realisation was only Rs. 2.12 paise. Thus, for every unit sold there was a loss of 92 paise. With such a tariff structure, the SEBs could not be expected to make profit. There was nothing wrong with the functioning of SEBs and it were only the Government policies that had made them bankrupt, Mr. Naikwadi said. On the problems faced by Mescom engineers, he said there was a shortage of engineers. The last recruitment of assistant engineers was in 1998. If the vacancies in the escoms and the KPTCL were put together, the number of vacant engineer posts would come to nearly 1,200, he said. Even promotion chances were bleak. Even after almost 30 years of service, engineers managed to get only one promotion, he said. The Karnataka Electricity Board Engineers' Association has called upon the Managing Director of the Mescom to adopt the KPCL time-bound promotional policy and evolve a career development programme for engineers as it existed in public/private sector organisations to improve the efficiency of the staff. The Vice-President of the Karnataka Electricity Board Engineers' Association, J.B. Yoge Gowda, was present.
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