CERC raps power firms for flouting guidelines

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has threatened to cancel power trading licences of companies including Tata Power, Reliance Energy, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar, MMTC Ltd and PTC India, for not complying with the conditions mentioned in their trading licences.

Thirteen of the fourteen companies, to which the CERC had given licenses, have been found to be flouting the some provisions.

The only exception has been the Bangalore-based Subash Kabini Power Corporation Ltd. Notices have also been sent to Adani Exports Ltd, DLF Power Ltd, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, Sumex Organix Pvt Ltd, Lanco Electricity Utility Ltd, GMR Energy Ltd, Chhatisagarh Electricity Company Ltd and Karam Chand Thapar & Bros Ltd, for the same reason.

One of the conditions under which licences ware given, was that companies should provide information on the amount of electricity traded and the price at which transaction was done.

This information was to be communicated on a quarterly basis to the CERC and to the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs), Regional Load Dispatch Centres (RLDC) for posting on their websites.

Under the terms of the licence, the companies were also required to post the information on their own websites.

"While there has been no default with the CERC, this information was not available on the websites of these companies. It was also not provided to the SERCs and RLDCs," said AK Basu, Chairman, CERC, adding that show-cause notices were sent to the companies last week.

The companies have been given time till July 15 to respond to the notice.

When contacted, TN Thakur, Chairman, PTC India, said, "We have no issues on disclosure. We have been putting relevant information (barring rates) on the website. Once transactions are over, we can put the rates at which they were concluded too, provided everyone else does it".

There is a view, however, that information on price of traded electricity is commercially sensitive, and cannot be disclosed.

"If companies felt that this was sensitive information, which could not be disclosed, they should have objected at the time when the licences were given," said Basu.

The regulator has also questioned PTC India and Adani Exports over their high trading margins.

In case of PTC, the trading margin was Rs 0.30 per unit (kilowatt hour), while for Adani, it was even higher at Rs 0.36 per unit.