Experts to be on board in MSEB spinoffs

Energy minister to be in charge of the holding company

Private sector experts from the fields of energy, industry and finance would find positions as directors in the three companies unbundled from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB).

Revealing this, Maharashtra's energy minister Dilip Walse-Patil said, "While the state's energy minister (himself) will head the holding company""MSEB Holding Company Ltd (MSEBHC), the other entities thus created will be autonomously run."

The MSEB would continue to exist in order to handle residual issues such as regulating the employees provident fund dues as well as that of the employers in the new companies, according to MSEB chairman Jayant Kawle.

These three newly created entities""Maharashtra State Electricity Generation Company (MSEGC), Maharashtra State Transmission Company (MSTC) and the Maharashtra State Distribution Company (MSDC)""will have experts from energy, industry and finance on their respective nine member boards.Kawle has been entrusted with handling the MSEGC and MSDC, while the state energy secretary B P Pande has been given dual charge of the holding arm MSEBHC and MSTC.

Patil clarified that it was not necessary to include somebody from a private power utility as a board member of the unbundled companies of the erstwhile MSEB that would be governed by the Companies Act.

"The workers who were employed in MSEB on the generation side would be transferred to the MSEGC and those working in the transmission and distribution segments of the board would similarly be working with MSTC and MSDC. Those employees of the board handling the policy making aspects as well as financial aspects would be retained by the holding arm MSEBHC," Patil said.

A committee under the state chief secretary R Premkumar has also been constituted to carve out a revenue model that would be followed by the four newly created entities.

The committee will submit its report within six months after which the state cabinet will take a decision on the second phase of restructuring of the distribution segment of the state run power utilities.

He added that the business valuation of the assets of the MSEB that were pegged at Rs 23,000 crore based on their book valuation was expected to be completed within a year. This would be followed by their division between the four newly created entities although it would have a retrospective effect from 5 June, 2005.

On the current acute power scenario being faced in the state, Kawle said that a shortage of 3200 MW was being experienced daily while expressing the hope that efforts to ramp up power availability would help reduce the huge power imbalance to some extent by August.

"We are currently getting 60 MW of unallotted quota from the Union government, the 150 MW supplied from the Tarapur plant since this morning is expected to be increased to 250 MW within a weeks time and we expect 400 MW more from the Uran gas based power project in addition to the current 200 MW of power that is being supplied. After the three and four phases of Tarapur are completed after August we expect a further 300 MW as well as additional power from the Sardar Sarovar Project to help alleviate the power crunch in Maharashtra," he said.

Following the trifurcation...

• State energy minister will head the holding company, which will be called MSEB Holding Company Ltd.
• MSEB to continue to exist in order to handle residual issues, especially staff financial matters
• State energy secretary B P Pandey given charge of the holding company and the Maharashtra State Transmission Company
• Patil says it's not imperative to have board members from the private power generation sector